natural gas prices at a ten month low; US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, oil + products supplies at an 18½ year low

natural gas prices are at a ten month low; US oil supplies are at a new 36½ year low, Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at a new 39 year low; oil + oil products supplies are at a new 18½ year low

US oil prices finished higher for a third consecutive week after Russia cut off oil supplies to the countries plotting to cap their prices ​while traders antipated a recovery in Chinese demand   after rising 6.8% to $79.56 a barrel last week as China's Covid reopening continued, US oil inventories dropped, and Russia threatened to cut its crude output, the contract price for the benchmark US light sweet crude for February delivery rose in light post-holiday Asian trading on Tuesday on concerns that the winter storms across the US had affected ​​production and logistics of petroleum products and shale oil, but pulled back from early gains in a thinly traded New York market, as traders tried to gauge exactly when the Chinese economy might emerge from the impact of COVID restrictions, and settled 3 cents lower at $79.53 a barrel after hitting a three-week high as restarts at some U.S. energy plants shut by winter storms offset gains stemming from hopes of a demand recovery as China eased its COVID-19 restrictions...oil prices fell in choppy trade early on Wednesday as fears of a global recession and concerns about rising COVID-19 cases in China took center stage, and ended the session 57 cents lower at $78.96 a barrel​,​ as optimism over the demand outlook stemming from China’s continued relaxation of COVID-19 curbs was offset by a surge in new cases of the disease, while a firmer dollar also pressured prices...oil prices held those losses in overnight trading after the API reported U.S. crude stockpiles fell modestly for a second straight week, then opened lower on Thursday and tumbled to a $2 loss after the EIA reported a modest build of US crude oil inventories, but ​partly ​bounced off that drop amid the tepid reopening of China's economy, and settled 56 cents lower at $78.40 a barrel as several countries considered restrictions on Chinese travelers​ as ​their ​Covid-19 infections spread​....oil prices slipped in cautious early trading on Friday, as a surge of COVID-19 cases in China exacerbated fears of a global recession and offset concerns over tight supplies due to the escalating Ukraine conflict. but turned higher as optimism persisted that the ease in China's Covid restrictions would release pent-up oil demand, and settled $1.86 higher at $80.26 a barrel, as traders waited for possible output cuts from Russia in response to the price cap from Western countries, thus salvaging a 0.9% increase on the week and ending the year 6.8% higher, in large part because the conflict in Ukraine threatened to remove about 2 million barrels from an already-tight market and in part because a world coming out of COVID-19 lockdown was craving more and more oil....

On the other hand, natural gas prices finished lower for the fourth time in five weeks, as warm weather was expected to persist over most of the country through mid January....after falling 23% to $5.079 per mmBTU last week as traders looked past the Christmas cold spell to forecasts for warming weather to start the new year, the contract price of US natural gas for January delivery opened higher and advanced in early trading Tuesday as traders weighed substantial impacts from ​the ​recent Arctic weather against a warm temperature outlook heading into the first week of January and settled a volatile session with a 20.3 cent gain at $5.282 per mmBTU, on the potential for cold to return before mid-January and with U.S. production sharply lower following widespread freeze-offs...however, natural gas prices tumbled on Wednesday, the last day of trading for the January gas contract, and settled 57.3 cents or 10.8% lower at a nine month low of $4.709 per mmBTU on milder weather forecasts over the next two weeks that would crimp early January heating demand, while contract prices for February delivery followed suit and ​fell 55.3 cents to end the session at $4.698 mmBTU...with price quotes now referencing the contract price of US natural gas for February delivery, natural gas gave up another 12.6 cents to settle the Thursday session at a ten month low of $4.559 per mmBTU, as blowtorch weather seen persisting through at least mid-January trumped what could be one of the largest natural gas storage withdrawals of the winter season...natural gas prices closed out the week and month lower on Friday, slipping another 8.4 cents to $4.475 per mmBTU, as record warmth expected through mid-January and rapidly recovering production pressured markets, and thus finished the week 11.9% lower, while the Februay contract, which had finished the prior week at $4.980 per mmBTU, ended 10.1% lower..

The EIA's natural gas storage report for the week ending December 23rd indicated that the amount of working natural gas held in underground storage in the US fell by 213 billion cubic feet to 3,112 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which meant our gas supplies were 133 billion cubic feet, or 4.1% less than the 3,245 billion cubic feet that were in storage on December 23rd of last year, and 85 billion cubic feet, or 2.7% less than the five-year average of 3,197 billion cubic feet of natural gas that were in storage as of the 23rd of December over the most recent five years....the 213 billion cubic foot withdrawal from US natural gas working storage for the cited week was more than the average forecast for a 201 billion cubic feet withdrawal in a Reuters poll of analysts, and much more than the 125 billion cubic feet that were pulled from natural gas storage during the corresponding week of 2021, and also much more than the average 106 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have typically been withdrawn from our natural gas storage during the same winter week over the past 5 years...

The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA

US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending December 23rd indicated that after a big drop in our oil exports and an increase in our oil imports, we had a bit of oil left to add to our stored commercial crude supplies for the 2nd time in 7 weeks, and for the 20th time in the past 36 weeks, despite a ​pullback​ in production and an increase in refining.  Our imports of crude oil rose by an average of 433,000 barrels per day to average 6,252,000 barrels per day, after falling by an average of 1,048,000 barrels per day during the prior week, while our exports of crude oil fell by 895,000 barrels per day to average 3,465,000 barrels per day, which combined meant that the net of our trade in oil worked out to an import average of 2,787,000 barrels of oil per day during the week ending December 23rd, 1,328,000 more barrels per day than the net of our imports minus our exports during the prior week.  Over the same period, production of crude from US wells was reportedly 100,000 barrels per day lower at 12,000,000 barrels per day, and hence our daily supply of oil from the net of our international trade in oil and from domestic well production appears to have averaged a total of 14,787,000 barrels per day during the December 23rd reporting week…

Meanwhile, US oil refineries reported they were processing an average of 16,149,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending December 23rd, an average of 173,000 more barrels per day than the amount of oil that our refineries processed during the prior week, while over the same period the EIA’s surveys indicated that a net average of 397,000 barrels of oil per day were being pulled out of the supplies of oil stored in the US.  So, based on that reported & estimated data, the crude oil figures from the EIA for the week ending December 23rd appears to indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports, from oilfield production, and from storage was 966,000 barrels per day less than what our oil refineries reported they used during the week. To account for that obvious disparity between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA just inserted a (+966,000) barrel per day figure onto line 13 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet in order to make the reported data for the daily supply ofl oil and for the consumption of it balance out, a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as “unaccounted for crude oil”, thus suggesting there must have been an omission or error of that magnitude in this week’s oil supply & demand figures that we have just transcribed.... However, since most everyone treats these weekly EIA reports as gospel, and since these weekly figures often drive oil pricing, and hence decisions to drill or complete oil wells, we’ll continue to report this data just as it's published, and just as it's watched & believed to be reasonably accurate by most everyone in the industry...(for more on how this weekly oil data is gathered, and the possible reasons for that “unaccounted for” oil, see this EIA explainer)….

This week's 397,000 barrel per day decrease in our overall crude oil inventories left our oil supplies at 794,080,000 barrels at the end of the week, which was our lowest total oil inventory level since January 17th, 1986, and therefore at a new 36 1/2 year low....Our oil inventories decreased this week as an average of 103,000 barrels per day were being added to our commercially available stocks of crude oil, while 499,000 barrels per day of oil were being pulled out of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That draw on the SPR was an extension of the emergency withdrawal under Biden's "Plan to Respond to Putin’s Price Hike at the Pump" (sic), that was originally intended to supply 1,000,000 barrels of oil per day to commercial interests over a six month period from its inception to the midterm elections in November, in the hope of keeping gasoline and diesel fuel prices from rising over that time.  The SPR withdrawals under that program began fluctuating during the summer because the administration had also been attempting to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to manipulate prices on a weekly basis.  Before that plan even ran out, Biden announced another 15,000,000 barrel release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to run through thee end of December, while simultaneously announcing he'd buy crude to replenish the SPR if oil prices fall to or below the $67-72 a barrel range, effectively putting a floor under oil at that price.  Then, on Friday of last week, the administration announced an initial token purchase of three million barrels under that plan, for oil to be delivered back to the SPR in February.  Including the administration's initial 50,000,000 million barrel SPR release earlier this year, their subsequent 30,000,000 barrel release, and other withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve under recent release programs, a total of 281,019,000 barrels of oil have now been removed from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the past 29 months, and as a result the 375,128,000 barrels of oil that still remain in our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now the lowest since December 16th, 1983, or at a new 39 year low, as repeated tapping of our emergency supplies for non-emergencies or to pay for other programs had already drained those supplies considerably over the past dozen years, even before the Biden administration's SPR releases. The total 180,000,000 barrel drawdown of the current Biden release program, scheduled to run through the end of December, will have released almost a third of what remained in the SPR when the program started, and leave us with what is less than a 20 day supply of oil at the current consumption rate as we head into the new year.

Further details from the weekly Petroleum Status Report (pdf) indicate that the 4 week average of our oil imports rose to an average of 6,237,000 barrels per day last week, which was still 3.8% less than the 6,481,000 barrel per day average that we were importing over the same four-week period last year. This week’s crude oil production was reported to be 100,000 barrels per day lower at 12,000,000 barrels ​per day because the EIA's rounded estimate of the output from wells in the lower 48 states was 200,000 barrels per day lower at 11,500,000 barrels per day, but Alaska’s oil production was 5,000 barrels per day lower at 454,000 barrels per day and added 100,000 barrels per day back to the rounded national total. (​by the ​EIA's math).  US crude oil production had reached a pre-pandemic high of 13,100,000 barrels per day during the week ending March 13th 2020, so this week’s reported oil production figure was 8.4% below that of our pre-pandemic production peak, but was 23.7% above the pandemic low of 9,700,000 barrels per day that US oil production had fallen to during the third week of February of 2021.

US oil refineries were operating at 92.0% of their capacity while using those 16,149,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending December 16th, up from their 90.2% utilization rate during the prior week, ​but ​a fairly normal utilization rate for late December.  The 16,149,000 barrels per day of oil that were refined this week were 2,8% more than the 15,703,000 barrels of crude that were being processed daily during week ending December 24th of 2021, while 6.6% less than the 17,283,000 barrels that were being refined during the prepandemic week ending December 27th, 2019, when our refinery utilization was at 94.5%​, ​​as refinery utilization typically rises into late December ...

With the increase in the amount of oil being refined this week, gasoline output from our refineries was quite a bit higher, increasing by 592,000 barrels per day to 10,144,000 barrels per day during the week ending December 23rd, after our gasoline output had increased by 358,000 barrels per day during the prior week. This week’s gasoline production was 0.3% more than the 10,113,000 barrels of gasoline that were being produced daily over the same week of last year, but 0.3% less than the gasoline production of 10,173,000 barrels per day during the prepandemic week ending December 27th, 2019.  On the other hand, our refineries’ production of distillate fuels (diesel fuel and heat oil) decreased by 17,000 barrels per day to 5,085,000 barrels per day, after our distillates output had decreased by 66,000 barrels per day during the prior week.  But even with those decreases, our distillates output was still 3.0% more than the 4,935,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending December 24th of 2021, while 4.3% less than the 5,311,,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending December 27th 2019...

​Even with the increase in our gasoline production, our supplies of gasoline in storage at the end of the week fell for the first time in seven weeks and for the 11th time in 20 weeks, decreasing by 3,105,000 barrels to 213,768,000 barrels during the week ending December 23rd, after our gasoline inventories had increased by 2,530,000 barrels during the prior week. Our gasoline supplies fell this week because the amount of gasoline supplied to US users rose by 613,000 barrels per day to 9,327,000 barrels per day, while our exports of gasoline fell by 21,000 barrels per day to 856,000 barrels per day, and while our imports of gasoline fell by 15,000 barrels per day to 536,000 barrels per day.   ​But a​fter 6 prior gasoline inventory increases, our gasoline supplies were 0.2% more than last December 24th's gasoline inventories of 222,659,000 barrels, but still about 4% below the five year average of our gasoline supplies for this time of the year…

Even with the decrease in our distillates production, our supplies of distillate fuels increased for the 6th time in 7 weeks, and for the 26th time over the past year, rising by 283,000 barrels to 120,212,000 barrels during the week ending December 23rd, after our distillates supplies had decreased by 242,000 barrels during the prior week. Our distillates supplies rose this week because the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of our domestic demand, decreased by 135,000 barrels per day to 3,880,000 barrels per day, while our imports of distillates fell by 28,000 barrels per day to 160,000 barrels per day and our exports of distillates rose by 14,000 barrels per day to 1,324,000 barrels per day... ​But after fifty-three inventory withdrawals over the past eighty-seven weeks, our distillate supplies at the end of the week were were still 1.8% below the 122,428,000 barrels of distillates that we had in storage on December 24th of 2021, and about 7% below the five year average of distillates inventories for this time of the year...

Meanwhile, after a big drop in our oil exports and an increase in our imports, our commercial supplies of crude oil in storage rose for the 8th time in 20 weeks and for the 22nd time in the past year, increasing by 718,000 barrels over the week, from 418,234,000 barrels on December 16th to 418,952,000 barrels on December 23rd, after our commercial crude supplies had decreased by 5,895,000 barrels over the prior week.  After this week's increase, our commercial crude oil inventories rose to around 6% below the most recent five-year average of crude oil supplies for this time of year, but were still 27.8% more than the average of our crude oil stocks as of the fourth weekend of December over the 5 years at the beginning of the past decade, with the disparity between those comparisons arising because it wasn’t until early 2015 that our oil inventories first topped 400 million barrels. And after our commercial crude oil inventories had jumped to record highs during the Covid lockdowns of the Spring of 2020, and then jumped again after February 2021's winter storm Uri froze off US Gulf Coast refining, our commercial crude supplies as of this December 23rd were 0.2% less than the 419,995,000 barrels of oil we had in commercial storage on December 24th of 2021, and 15.1% less than the 493,469,000 barrels of oil that we had in storage on December 25th of 2020, and 2.5% less than the 429,896,000 barrels of oil we had in commercial storage on December 27th of 2019…

Finally, with our inventories of crude oil and our supplies of all products made from oil near multi-year lows over the most recent months, we are also continuing to watch the total of all U.S. Stocks of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products, including those in the SPR.  After the crude ​and gasoline inventory​decreases we've already noted for this week, the total of our oil and oil product inventories, including those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and those held by the oil industry, and thus including everything from gasoline and jet fuel to propane/propylene and residual fuel oil, fell by 14,737,000 barrels this week, from 1,598,236,000 barrels on December 16th to 1,583,499,000 barrels on December 23rd, after our total inventories had decreased by 15,203,000 barrels during the prior week. This week's decrease left our total petroleum liquids inventories down by 204,934,000 barrels over the first 51 weeks of this year, and at the lowest since May 21st, 2004, or at a new 18 1/2 year low...

This Week's Rig Count

The number of drilling rigs active in the US was unchanged with this week's report, which covers the eight days ending Friday, December 30th, as last week's report was released a day early due to the Christmas holiday. ​ ​Baker Hughes reported that the total count of rotary rigs drilling in the US was unchanged at 779 rigs over the past week, which was still 193 more rigs than the 586 rigs that were in use as of the December 31st report of 2021, but was 1,150 fewer rigs than the shale era high of 1,929 drilling rigs that were deployed on November 21st of 2014, a week before OPEC began to flood the global market with oil in an attempt to put US shale out of business.  Even after 93 weekly increases over the past 118 weeks, total active rigs are still 1.8% below the prepandemic rig count....

The number of rigs drilling for oil decreased by 1 to 621 oil rigs during the past week, after the number of rigs targeting oil had increased by 2 during the prior week, but there are still 141 more oil rigs active now than were running a year ago, even as they amount to just 38.6% of the shale era high of 1609 rigs that were drilling for oil on October 10th, 2014, and as they are still down 9.1% from the prepandemic oil rig count….at the same time, the number of drilling rigs targeting natural gas bearing formations increased by 1 to 156 natural gas rigs, which was also up by 50 natural gas rigs from the 106 natural gas rigs that were drilling during the same week a year ago, even as they were only 9.7% of the modern high of 1,606 rigs targeting natural gas that were deployed on September 7th, 2008….

Other than those rigs targeting oil and natural gas, Baker Hughes reports that two "miscellaneous" rigs continued drilling this week: one of those was a directional rig drilling to between 5,000 and 10,000 feet on the big island of Hawaii, while the other was a directional rig drilling to between 5,000 and 10,000 feet into a formation in Lake county California that Baker Hughes doesn't track....While we haven't seen any details on either of those wells, in the past we've identified various "miscellaneous" rig activity as being for exploration, for carbon dioxide storage, and for utility scale geothermal projects...a year ago, there were were no such "miscellaneous" rigs running...

The offshore rig count in the Gulf of Mexico was unchanged at 15 rigs this week, with 14 rigs still drilling in Louisiana's offshore waters, and only one rig still drilling for oil offshore from Texas....that Gulf rig count equals the 15 Gulf rigs running a year ago, when 13 of the Gulf rigs were drilling for oil offshore from Louisiana and two were deployed for oil offshore from Texas...since there aren't any rigs drilling off our other coasts, the Gulf rig count equals the national offshore count..

In addition to rigs running offshore, there are still two water based rigs drilling through inland bodies of water this week; those include a directional rig drilling for oil at a depth greater than 15,000 feet in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana; and a directional rig drilling for oil to between 5,000 and 10,000 feet, inland in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana ...a year ago, there was just one such rig drilling on inland waters...

The count of active horizontal drilling rigs was down by 4 to 706 horizontal rigs this week, which was still 176 more rigs than the 530 horizontal rigs that were in use in the US on December 31st of last year, but just 51.4% of the record 1,374 horizontal rigs that were drilling on November 21st of 2014....on the other hand, the directional rig count was up by four to 46 directional rigs this week, and those were up by 16 from the 30 directional rigs that were operating during the same week a year ago…meanwhile, the vertical rig count was unchanged at 27 vertical rigs this week, which was up by 1 from the 26 vertical rigs that were in use on December 31st of 2021….

The details on this week’s changes in drilling activity by state and by major shale basin are shown in our screenshot below of that part of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes that gives us those changes…the first table below shows weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major oil & gas producing states, and the table below that shows the weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major US geological oil and gas basins…in both tables, the first column shows the active rig count as of December 30th, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week’s count (December 22nd) and this week’s (December 30th) count, the third column shows last week’s December 22nd active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on Thursday and the number running on the Thursday before the same weekend of a year ago, and the 5th column shows the number of rigs that were drilling at the end of that reporting week a year ago, which in this week’s case was the 31st of December, 2021...

checking the Rigs by State file at Baker Hughes for the changes in the Texas Permian, we find that there were 3 rigs added in Texas Oil District 8, which overlies the core Permian Delaware, but that there was a rig pulled out of Texas Oil District 7C, which covers the southernmost counties in the Permian Midland....since the Texas Permian count was thus up by two while the national Permian basin count was only up by one, we can thus conclude that the rig that was pulled out of New Mexico had been drilling in the far western Permian Delaware, in the southwest corner of that state....elsewhere in Texas, there was also a rig added in Texas Oil District 6, apparently a natural gas rig in the Haynesville shale, since the rig count in the Haynesville shale area in adjacent Louisiana was down by one, while the national Haynesville count was unchanged...meanwhile, there was also a rig pulled out of Texas Oil District 9, which apparently had been targeting a basin not tracked by Baker Hughes...

In Oklahoma, there were three rigs added in the Ardmore Woodford, while there were two rigs pulled out of the Cana Woodford...in Utah, there was an oil rig pulled out of the Uintah basin, one of the major ​oil & gas ​basins that Baker Hughes doesn't track... .meanwhile, the ​oil ​rig pulled out of the DJ Niobrara chalk had been drilling in either Wyoming or Colorado, and most likely Wyoming, because that state includes two major active basins also not tracked by Baker Hughes...in addition, the natural gas rig that was added this week was also in a basin not tracked by Baker Hughes, and it could have been anywhere, since an oil rig was removed from the same basin at the same time, and hence appears as unchanged on all of Baker Hughes summary tables...

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Opinion: Politicians have put interests of oil, gas industries before Ohioans, parks - by Randi Pokladnik --  The Ohio House and Senate recently passed the Amended HB 507 bill. The bill was originally intended to address poultry sales and food safety; however, at the last minute an amendment (134-3853) was added to HB 507 in the Senate. Basically, the amendment will force state agencies to open their land to oil and gas drilling with no exceptions. The amendment creates an atmosphere where citizens are basically locked out of any public review process and refused the ability to make comments on the leasing process. It by-passes any considerations of impacts to the environment and recreation.  Pre-19th century, Ohio was 95 percent forested. Today, only 30 percent of forested land remains (8 million acres) and only 11 percent is owned by state and local governments. The Ohio State Park system encompasses about 170,000 acres of land and more than 31 million visitors come to Ohio parks each year.   For many people, both in and out of the state, state parks and forests remain a sanctuary; a place for them to escape their hectic lives and find the peace that nature offers. It also provides a space for recreating, bird watching, fishing, hunting, hiking, canoeing and biking. Additionally, a study by Ohio State University determined that outdoor recreationalists’ trips bring in $8.1 billion to Ohio’s economy and the sector employs 133,000 workers.   Fracking and all the build-out that this industry requires will dramatically change the landscape of Ohio’s parks and forests. Who wants to hike through a park with frack pads and fracking infrastructure? Who wants to ingest wild game and fish taken from areas where fracking is occurring? Since 2005, and the passage of the Energy Policy Act, also known as the Haliburton Loophole, fracking remains virtually unregulated.Who will guarantee that every stage of the process will be conducted in a way so as not to disrupt the state lands that supposedly belong to Ohio’s citizens? A study in West Virginia showed forest ecosystems are negatively affected by forest clearing, erosion, and road building during fracking. Vegetation death was also noted after frack fluids were sprayed on the surrounding trees. Peer reviewed studies show that watersheds surrounding frack well pads test positive for the radioactive substances found in frack waste water, which consists of fracturing fluid and salts, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and radioactive material accumulated from natural underground sources. Fracking well pads and infrastructure will require clearing areas (cutting trees and vegetation).This will require areas of anywhere from four to 25 acres. Not only will this fragment the forest it will cause other effects that to date are still not clearly understood or studied. This includes additional fragmentation that could affect plant reproduction. Fracking can also introduce and encourage the spread of invasive species via the gravel delivered to build pads and roads, and in mud on the tires and undercarriages of trucks traveling those roads.  Traffic in the region will increase tremendously, becoming a maintenance burden on roads, and also a hazard to local citizens and visitors. Each well drilled requires approximately 592 one-way trips, with a truck that carries between 80,000 pounds and 100,000 pounds. The traffic from the development of one well is equivalent to 3.4 million car trips.  The process of high-pressure hydraulic fracking necessitates the use of 4 million to 6 million gallons of water per well. This surface water will no doubt be withdrawn from the local streams, resulting in harm to aquatic organisms. Fracking fluids contain chemical additives, e.g. friction reducers, biocides and surfactants, many of which are known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. Very little is known about the potential effects of the chemicals, metals, organics or other contaminants once they enter terrestrial or aquatic food webs.   Fracking operations release fugitive methane emissions and are much higher than the industry reports. Methane gas is about 86 times as potent as carbon dioxide in magnifying heat related to climate change. The aesthetic beauty as well as biodiversity of the forest will be impacted by allowing fossil fuel companies to frack the landscape.  Once again, Ohio’s politicians place the interests of the oil and gas industry ahead of Ohio’s citizens.

New Utica Drilling Permits Increase in 2022 - Business Journal Daily -  – The number of new drilling permits issued to oil and gas companies exploring the Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation in Columbiana County increased substantially in 2022 compared with the previous two years, records show. The Ohio Department of…

Enbridge resolves unplanned outages on its Texas Eastern gas line -    (Reuters) - Enbridge Inc's Texas Eastern gas pipeline system on Wednesday lifted a force majeure event on its Lebanon Compressor Station in Ohio following a series of unplanned outages last week, the company posted on its website. The pipeline system experienced similar outages at its Five Points, Ohio and Armagh, Pennsylvania compressor stations last week, which have now been resolved. An Operational Flow Order (OFO) for all market area zones issued on Dec. 23 has been lifted as well, as per the latest notice. The 8,580 mile-long pipeline system connects Texas and the Gulf Coast to markets in the northeastern United States and can transport 12.04 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, according to the Enbridge website.

Inside the 14-year battle to secure a water line for fracking’s ‘Ground Zero’ in Pa. - Victoria Switzer could not have predicted that she would be standing beside Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro to celebrate a natural gas company’s acceptance of legal responsibility for environmental crimes in her neighborhood. But that’s what she did on Nov. 29, just minutes after Coterra Energy Inc. pleaded no contest to criminal charges in the fracking-related water pollution crisis in her community going back more than a decade. The company moved in here more than a decade ago and its natural gas drilling was first tied to methane pollution in residents’ water wells in 2009; some still do not have easy access to potable water, residents and scientists tell Capital & Main.  As part of the plea bargain — which the attorney general’s office shared with Dimock residents a week prior to the hearing — the company will pay $16.29 million to drill a series of clean water wells and a water line connecting Dimock homes to this supply. The company will also give each affected household $58,000 to cover its water bills for the next 75 years and, during the estimated three- to four-year construction period, water treatment systems or bottled water while the households await the water line.  “I think it’s the best we could have asked for,” Switzer told Capital and Main on Nov. 30, the morning after the hearing. A 19-year resident of an area once considered “ground zero” in the fight against fracking, Switzer and her husband moved here in the early aughts and built their home from the ground up. She hasn’t ingested her well water since 2009. The outcome of the plea agreement is welcome news. The November plea hearing lasted no more than 30 minutes in all — a swift resolution to a 14-year struggle for clean water and a two-and-a-half-year wait for residents who were promised justice by Shapiro in June 2020 when, as the state’s attorney general, he charged the company with nine felonies and six misdemeanors after methane escaped from its natural gas wells into nearby private water supplies.. For years, residents felt twice-cursed: They lacked easy access to clean water since their water pipes were polluted due to fracking activity by Coterra, the fourth-largest gas-producing company in the state, which then resisted paying for a municipal water line when the plan was initially introduced, according to interviews and documents shared with Capital and Main.  And while a water line cannot undo the environmental damage caused by natural gas drilling, for some residents it would  eliminate the hassle of making lengthy treks every few days just to access clean water.  The saga began back in 2006, when Cabot land men arrived and knocked on the doors of Dimock residents to ask about signing leases to the mineral rights beneath their properties.

U.S. Natural Gas Production Plunges As Winter Storm Wreaks Havoc - Natural gas output in the Appalachia region, the top gas-producing basin in the U.S., dropped by a record amount as Winter Storm Elliott swept through Pennsylvania and Ohio, freezing wells and some equipment and creating mechanical issues at pipeline infrastructure. The Appalachia basin saw natural gas supply drop by 27%, or by 9 billion cubic feet, compared to the typical levels, according to estimates by BloombergNEF based on pipeline flows. The decline was the steepest on record in data since 2013, Bloomberg notes. In Pennsylvania, natural gas production fell by more than 20%, due to well freeze-offs. In Ohio, output more than halved, according to Bloomberg’s estimates. Winter Storm Elliott cut off the power supply to millions of households and disrupted Christmas travel plans for millions more as thousands of flights were canceled. Just ahead of the Christmas holiday weekend, almost 250 million U.S. and Canadian residents were affected by the storm in one way or another, and dozens of people have died. As of Tuesday, December 27, U.S. natural gas production was still significantly below the levels of the past weeks. Early production data, cited by Natural Gas Intelligence, showed that American natural gas output was still around 80-86 Bcf/d, well below the 100 Bcf/d production of the past weeks and months. Several gas pipelines continued to report issues this week, which has further constrained the ability of gas flows to the systems. The plunge in the Appalachia natural gas production exacerbated issues at the grids as lower volumes of gas were sent via pipelines to gas-fired power generation units. This happened just as power demand surged during the storm, straining electricity systems in some areas in the U.S. The Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy implemented rolling blackouts in the Tennessee Valley and the Carolinas ahead of Christmas Eve to maintain grid stability.

America's Biggest Gas Producer Sees 30% Output Cut Over Storm -America’s largest natural gas producer, EQT Corp, has experienced a plunge in production up to 30% due to severe cold weather that led to Appalachian Basin well disruption, Bloomberg reports. Speaking to Bloomberg Television on Wednesday, EQT Chief Executive Officer Toby Rice said output fell by between 1 billion and 1.5 billion cubic feet per day amid the extreme cold snap that started last week with a blast of Arctic air and strong winds leading to subzero temperatures affecting an estimated 150 million people. In Q3 2022, EQT was producing around 5 billion cubic feet per day. Rice said output should be restored to normal in the “next couple of days”. The EQT executive is using this loss of production as a public stage for slamming renewable power sources, which he told Bloomberg “didn’t show up”, applauding the natural gas industry’s ability to respond quickly to severe weather conditions and calling for more natural gas pipelines to shore up heating and power supplies. Last month, Rice said in a public statement that increasing natural gas production and building more pipelines was the answer to climate change, global poverty and a host of other problems. Overall, the Appalachian Basin saw natural gas output drop by 9 billion cubic feet–a 27% plunge. According to Bloomberg NEF, that drop was the biggest since 2013. The production drop in the region wreaked havoc on energy grids, which suffered from lower volumes of gas being piped to gas-fired power generation units. Production was most profoundly hit in Ohio, which experienced a nearly 50% output drop as Winter Storm Elliott raged through both Ohio and Pennsylvania, which saw a 20% decline in output. On Tuesday, Natural Gas Intelligence said that early production data showed that U.S. output was around 80-86 billion cubic feet per day, far below the trend of around 100 billion cubic feet per day over the past months.

U.S. Exports Bounce Back After Winter Storm Upends Natural Gas Flows – LNG Recap -  U.S. LNG export demand fell by about 5 Bcf/d heading into the holiday weekend as a brutal winter storm settled in over much of the country and impacted terminal operations. The storm brought high winds, rain, snow and freezing temperatures that cut into natural gas supply, slowed deliveries on interstate pipeline systems and halted vessel traffic along the Gulf Coast.  NGI’s U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas Export Tracker showed feed gas volumes dipped from a high of 13.81 Bcf/d early last week to just 9.29 Bcf on Friday. Vessel traffic stopped Friday on waterways serving the Calcasieu Pass, Cameron, Corpus Christi and Sabine Pass LNG terminals in Texas and Louisiana. It’s since resumed and feed gas deliveries have steadily climbed upward, with volumes nominated at 12.67 Bcf on Tuesday.  The storm’s impacts are still lingering, however. Moran Shipping Agencies Inc. warned of high winds along the Sabine-Neches waterway through Friday (Dec. 30) that could interrupt pilot service.  The Cameron Interstate Pipeline, which delivers about half of Cameron LNG’s feed gas, warned of possible capacity restrictions in the days ahead after equipment failure on a compressor station last Friday that’s expected to be out of service for a week.EBW Analytics Group said U.S.  natural gas production freeze-offs surpassed 15 Bcf/d over the weekend, or more than triple pre-storm projections. “The long holiday weekend enabled the natural gas market to sidestep tremendous price volatility and enabled a subdued post-holiday opening amid clashing mixed signals,”

INPEX enters 20-year purchase agreement with Venture Global for 1.1 million tons of LNG per year — On Dec. 27, Venture Global LNG and INPEX Corporation announced the execution of a long-term sales and purchase agreement for the purchase of 1.1 million tons of liquified natural gas per year for 20 years. Under the agreement, INPEX Energy Trading Singapore Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based subsidiary of INPEX, will purchase 1.1 million tons per year of LNG from CP2 LNG, Venture Global's third project. The project is expected to commence construction in 2023. INPEX joins other CP2 LNG customers including ExxonMobil, Chevron, EnBW and New Fortress Energy. "Venture Global is delighted to welcome INPEX, Japan's largest gas exploration and production company, as a customer at CP2 and expand our customer base in Asia," said Venture Global CEO Mike Sabel. "This agreement will enable the INPEX Group to procure LNG from the United States on a long-term basis, expand its LNG supply capacity, and diversify its supply sources to further contribute to the stable supply of energy," said Hiroshi Kato, Executive Officer and Senior Vice President of Global Energy Marketing at INPEX.

No Holiday Break for Asian Buyers Lining Up LNG Supply -  Asia-based LNG buyers announced a trio of offtake agreements to start the post-Christmas week, reflecting intense competition for natural gas molecules in a tightly supplied global market.  Venture Global LNG Inc. said Monday it has secured a long-term deal to supply liquefied natural gas to a Singapore-based subsidiary of Japan’s Inpex Corp. from Venture’s planned CP2 export project in Louisiana. Under the 20-year sales and purchase agreement (SPA), Inpex Energy Trading Singapore Pte. Ltd. would purchase one million metric tons/year (mmty) of LNG from CP2. The project, which entails an expansion of Venture’s Calcasieu Pass terminal, is slated to begin construction in 2023.Other CP2 offtakers include ExxonMobil, Chevron Corp., EnBW AG and New Fortress Energy Inc. CEO Mike Sabel touted Venture’s growing customer base in Asia with newly signed Inpex, Japan’s largest gas exploration and production company. “We are honored to provide security of LNG supply to this key market and look forward to supporting Inpex as it delivers our competitive lower carbon energy to the region.” Calcasieu Pass began producing LNG in January 2022. Venture is developing an additional 60 mmty of liquefaction capacity in Louisiana. The latest SPA “will enable the Inpex Group to procure LNG from the United States on a long-term basis, expand its LNG supply capacity and diversify its supply sources to further contribute to the stable supply of energy,” said Inpex’s Hiroshi Kato, senior vice president of global energy marketing.NextDecade Corp., meanwhile, said Tuesday it is increasing its volume commitment under an SPA with Singapore-based ENN LNG Pte. Ltd. to 2.0 mmty from 1.5 mmty.The supply would come from NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG (RGLNG) export project in Brownsville, TX.Volumes under the 20-year agreement are indexed to Henry Hub and would be supplied from the first three trains at RGLNG on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. NextDecade is aiming to sanction the first three trains of RGLNG during the first quarter of 2023, with sanctioning of the remaining trains to follow thereafter.Finally, Japan’s largest power producer, Jera Co. Inc., said Tuesday it has signed a key term sheet for the sale and purchase of LNG with Oman Liquefied Natural Gas LLC (Oman LNG).Under the agreement, Jera would purchase up to 12 cargoes, or roughly 0.8 mmty annually, from the Oman LNG project for 10 years starting from 2025.

LNG Driving Gulf Coast Infrastructure Investment, Natural Gas ProductionNatural gas production out of the U.S. Gulf Coast should rise over the next decade as it continues to look toward the export market, according to researchers at Louisiana State University’s (LSU) Center for Energy Studies. In the center’s latest Gulf Coast Energy Outlook (GCEO) authors David E. Dismukes and Greg Upton said that in the Gulf Coast “both oil and natural gas production in the region are anticipated to experience a decade of growth despite the fact that oil and natural gas prices are both in backwardation.” Gulf Coast natural gas production is seen increasing to 53 Bcf/d in 2022, up 14% year/year. Gulf Coast natural gas production could then exceed 68 Bcf/d by 2032. This year’s figure would mean more than 50% of U.S. natural gas would be produced in the Gulf Coast. The U.S. Energy Information Administration sees U.S. natural gas production averaging 100.4 Bcf/d next year, backed by growing production in Texas’s prolific Permian Basin and the Haynesville Shale in East Texas and Western Louisiana. The Gulf Coast region refers to the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama “This year’s GCEO, much like last year’s, anticipates that long-run energy demand growth will lead to increased U.S. energy exports, especially to the growing developing world,” the researchers said. They added that given softening inflation, and strong employment figures, “while a recession might certainly be on the horizon, this is not the GCEO base case.” Natural gas and oil prices could still be pressured higher because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the report said. Meanwhile, the exodus of Western technical knowhow from Russia will dent Russia’s oilfield services sector. “Trade flows have and will likely continue to adjust by substituting Russian products away from some markets toward others.” Overall, Gulf Coast natural gas prices “will likely remain elevated” due to LNG export pressures. “The relevant question today is whether natural gas prices have entered into a new epoch that reflects a greater integration of U.S. natural gas markets to global markets.”

Natural Gas Futures ‘Subdued’ Following Holiday Break as Traders Assess Arctic Storm’s Impacts --Natural gas futures advanced in early trading Tuesday as the market weighed substantial fundamental impacts from recent Arctic weather against a bearish temperature outlook heading into the first week of January. At around 8:40 a.m. ET, January was up 21.5 cents to $5.294/MMBtu. February was up 17.3 cents to $5.153. The long weekend allowed the natural gas market to “sidestep tremendous price volatility,” with traders returning from the break to a “subdued post-holiday opening amid clashing mixed signals,” according to EBW Analytics Group analyst Eli Rubin. The firm observed considerable impacts to both supply and demand coinciding with the recent Arctic blast sweeping through the Lower 48. These included more than 15 Bcf/d of production freeze-offs, well above expectations prior to the start of the intense cold, according to the analyst. This comes as “LNG demand sank 5.0 Bcf/d to keep scarce supplies domestically, and industrial demand appears off by at least 2.0 Bcf/d,” Rubin said. “Near-term price impacts for Nymex futures appear surprisingly muted heading into January options expiry as the market attempts to sort out immediate-term disruptions to both supply and demand — already fading with warming weather — set against a further bearish weather shift and declining threats to system adequacy.” Prior to the Christmas holiday weekend, forecasts had advertised much warmer-than-normal temperatures starting this week and extending through Jan. 6, and models maintained that bearish pattern over the weekend, according to NatGasWeather. Recent weather data put the period on track to be “one of the warmest…of the past 40 years” in terms of projected heating degree day totals nationally, the firm said. “Also, as we were expecting, the weather data forecasts closer to seasonal demand Jan. 8-11 as colder air over Canada advances into the northern U.S., although subject to large changes that far out,” NatGasWeather said. As for near-term price action, the expiration of the January contract and the duration of production impacts from the recent freeze could have a greater influence than forecasts, the firm added.

Natural Gas Futures Prices Edge Higher as Models Tease Mid-January Cold; Production Still Way Down - With natural gas traders still thawing out from the weekend’s Arctic blast, most remained on the sidelines of the action on Tuesday. However, with the potential for cold to return before mid-January and U.S. production sharply lower following widespread freeze-offs, the January Nymex gas futures contract eked out a 20.3-cent gain to settle at $5.282/MMBtu. The February contract climbed 13.8 cents to $5.118. Spot natural gas prices retreated from pre-winter storm highs across several regions of the Lower 48. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. fell $6.570 to $8.745. The impacts of Winter Storm Elliott notwithstanding, trading action was largely subdued after the long holiday weekend. The January contract opened Tuesday’s session at $5.283 but tumbled to a $5.081 intraday low as weather models showed record-setting warmth spreading across the country during the next 12 days. This should bring the lightest demand in more than 40 years, according to NatGasWeather. Production also remains a wildcard. In addition to the impact Elliott had on temperatures and demand, the monstrous winter storm also did a number on supply. Tuesday’s early production data pointed to around 80-86 Bcf/d of output. Though temperatures should continue to climb throughout the week, it’s too early to tell when production may return to the 100-plus Bcf/d levels seen earlier this month.A slew of pipelines continued to report issues on Tuesday, which may limit production’s ability to ramp higher. These included the Algonquin Gas Transmission, Cameron Interstate, Columbia Gas Transmission, Elba Express Co., Northern Border, Rockies Express, Southern Natural Gas Co., Tennessee Gas and Texas Eastern Transmission systems. Florida Gas Transmission also resumed and extended a planned maintenance event that was paused during the cold snap. With comparisons to Winter Storm Uri’s extreme production losses, EBW Analytics Group LLC said the curtailments could reshape the perception of natural gas deliverability. Instead of a one-in-30-year storm, the natural gas market is weathering extreme freeze-offs of 15-plus Bcf/d twice within three winters, the firm pointed out. Including Uri, production freeze-offs of 8 Bcf/d or more have occurred in three consecutive winter seasons.

U.S. natgas futures slide to 9-month low on less cold weather view  (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures dropped to a nine-month low on Wednesday on milder weather forecasts over the next two weeks that could crimp heating demand. On its last day as the front-month, gas futures NGc1 slipped 57.3 cents, or 10.8%, to settle at $4.709 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), after hitting its lowest level since March 15 at $4.588 earlier in the session. The contract lost 23% last week. "The forecasts are that the weather is going to warm up and then maybe stay warm for (a) period of time ... so the weakness in prices is a reaction to the weather forecast that above normal temperatures (will be) over most of the country," Data provider Refinitiv estimated 327 heating degree days (HDDs) over the next two weeks in the Lower 48 U.S. states, down from 352 HDDs estimated on Tuesday. The normal is 438 HDDs for this time of year. HDDs estimate demand to heat homes and businesses by measuring the number of degrees a day's average temperature is below 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius). Refinitiv projected that average U.S. gas demand, including exports, would rise from 139.9 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) last week to 143.4 bcfd this week before dropping to 111.2 bcfd in the next week with the weather expected to turn mild in early January. Those forecasts were lower than Refinitiv's outlook on Tuesday. Gas output was up about 7 bcfd over the past three days in the U.S. Lower 48 states after dropping to 80.4 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Saturday, its biggest drop in output since the February freeze of 2021. Winter storms over the weekend froze oil and gas wells in Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. U.S. daily demand from the four biggest gas-consuming sectors - residential, commercial, power and industrial - reached an all-time high of 148.5 billion cubic feet (bcf) on Friday, according to Refinitiv data. Europe's gas storage sites were 83.2% full overall, with the region's biggest consumer, Germany, seeing filling levels of 88.2%, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data. "Besides the weather factor, the market is being forced to discount a further expected delay in (the) re-opening of Freeport LNG operations amidst reported unresolved regulatory issues," Freeport LNG on Friday said it had delayed restart of its long-shut liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas, this time to the second half of January.

Natural Gas Futures Tumble Again Despite Bullish EIA Storage Data; Cash Sell-Off Continues -  Blowtorch weather seen persisting through at least mid-January trumped what could be one of the largest natural gas storage withdrawals of the winter season. On its first day at the front of the Nymex futures curve, the February contract settled at $4.559/MMBtu, off 12.6 cents from Wednesday’s close. March futures slipped 7.7 cents to $4.117. Spot gas, which traded Thursday for gas delivery through Saturday, continued to move lower amid modest heating demand. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. tumbled $1.355 to $4.715.With folks in Texas ditching the Uggs for shorts and t-shirts, unseasonably strong high pressure was set to expand across the southern and eastern United States the next several days as frigid cold retreated into Canada. Daytime temperatures in the 60s to lower 80s were forecast for the southern states going forward, with highs in the 40s to 60s over the Great Lakes and East. NatGasWeather said this should result in the warmest weather on record for this time of year. The West Coast, meanwhile, should see near-normal temperatures next week as Pacific weather systems bring rain, snow and chilly conditions to the region. However, this is not nearly cold enough to counter warm conditions elsewhere, according to NatGasWeather.  Whether continued weakness in futures prices is warranted is up for debate, but it is noteworthy that the latest government inventory data – which took several analysts by surprise – failed to stop the bleeding in the gas market.The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday reported a stunning 213 Bcf withdrawal from storage for the week ending Dec. 23. The triple-digit draw was near the high end of most major surveys, and analysts had indicated prior to the report that predicting the withdrawal would be difficult given that schools were closed, people were home, and yet some businesses were staying open later than usual.The wide range of estimates ahead of the EIA report reflected the uncertainty in how the winter storm would impact the supply/demand balance. A Reuters survey of 11 analysts produced a range of withdrawal estimates from 169 Bcf to 218 Bcf, with a median decrease of 199 Bcf. Bloomberg had a slightly tighter range but also had a median draw of 199 Bcf, while a Wall Street Journal poll averaged a 201 Bcf pull. NGI modeled a 199 Bcf withdrawal.For comparison, 125 Bcf was pulled out of storage in the year-earlier period, while the five-year average draw is 106 Bcf.

No Fireworks for Natural Gas Futures as February Slips Further; Permian Cash at Record Lows -- Natural gas winter futures closed out 2022 lower as record warmth expected through mid-January, along with quickly recovering production in the wake of Winter Storm Elliott, pressured markets. The February Nymex gas futures contract slipped 8.4 cents to $4.475/MMBtu. March slid 1.3 cents to $4.104. Spot gas, which traded Friday for delivery New Year’s Day through Tuesday, generally continued to crumble. Permian Basin cash plunged to record lows of negative $10.000, but big gains out West ultimately lifted NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. 4.5 cents to $4.760. In the aftermath of Elliott’s devastating storm impacts, the gas market has largely shifted its attention to the record warmth that has quickly followed. As important, there have been few signs that cold weather may return, leaving the market awash in supply as demand sinks. On Friday, the market continued to digest the latest government inventory data, which was bullish, but which failed to spark much buying. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said stocks for the week ending Dec. 23 fell by a massive 213 Bcf, a far deeper withdrawal than the year-earlier pull of 125 Bcf and the five-year average of 106 Bcf. Notably, the triple-digit draw sent inventories down to 3,112 Bcf, which is 133 Bcf below year-earlier levels and 85 Bcf below the five-year average. Despite the severity of the recent Arctic blast, Lower 48 storage was sitting above 3.1 Tcf, a level some analysts as recently as early summer had feared would be reached by the end of October. Furthermore, EBW noted that while the Pacific region remains undersupplied at only 165 Bcf, the South Central (home to Nymex Henry Hub futures) sat 58 Bcf above the five-year average at 1,136 Bcf. Waha gas, to be delivered from Sunday to Tuesday, traded firmly in negative territory on Friday. Prices ranged from negative $1.000 to negative $10.000 and averaged at negative $3.865, off $3.005 day/day. Likewise, other West Texas locations posted sub-zero prices. El Paso Permian dropped $3.025 on the day to average negative $3.800, and Transwestern fell $2.325 to average negative $3.115. This isn’t the first time Permian prices have fallen into negative territory. Such prices first appeared in the market in the spring of 2019 as production grew and pipeline capacity tightened. Waha, for example, averaged negative $5.750 that April, five months before Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Gulf Coast Express (GCX) pipeline project went into service. Regional cash prices went negative again in the fall of 2020, a couple of months before Kinder Morgan’s second Permian conduit – Permian Highway Pipeline – began operations. Until this year, Permian prices largely had remained in positive territory once PHP and another conduit, Whistler Pipeline, entered service. Still, with high oil prices spurring drilling activity in the Permian, associated gas has flooded the market. This, once again, has resulted in pipelines running full. Making matters worse, GCX on Thursday alerted customers that the maintenance on the Devil’s Run Compressor Station, which began on Wednesday, would be extended until further notice. This means that total capacity on the pipeline is to remain restricted by 145,000 MMBtu/d.

Gas spill contained at Metro East oil refinery, cleanup underway– Cleanup efforts are underway after a gas spill Friday evening at a Metro East oil refinery. Emergency crews reported a gas spill around 6 p.m. Friday at Kinder Morgan’s Midwest Terminal. The site is located at 1000 BP Lane in Wood River, Illinois. Officials tell FOX 2 there was a gasoline release after prolonged frigid conditions in the area. The gas spill did not lead to a fire, and no injuries have been reported from it. The gas spill was quickly contained on site As of Friday evening, the tank associated with the gas spill has been isolated and shut down. Emergency crew are conducting a series of air monitoring procedures and cleanup activities have begun. “We are working closely with our customers on potential impacts,” said a Kinder Morgan communications specialist in a statement to FOX 2. Emergency officials will handle the investigation on what led up to the gas leak.

Helicopter Crashes in GOM with Four Aboard - The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) paused its search late Thursday for three Walter Oil & Gas Corp. platform workers and a pilot after a helicopter crashed 10 miles off the coast of Southwest Pass, LA, in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). The USCG’s Eighth District, headquartered in New Orleans, conducted a search for about eight hours, covering an area of 180 square miles in the GOM. The search team included a helicopter aircrew and response boat crew. “It is always a difficult decision to suspend a search,” said Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Keefe, New Orleans Search and Rescue Mission coordinator. “Our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to the family and friends during this difficult time.” The USCG said it received a call from Rotorcraft Leasing Co. (RLC) around 8:40 a.m. CT Thursday stating that a company helicopter carrying four people had crashed in the GOM while departing from an oil rig platform. The platform is the West Delta 106 “A,” Walter Oil’s Sean Fitzgerald, managing director of crisis communications, told NGI. USCG’s Petty Officer Jose Hernandez told NGI that after pausing the search late Thursday, “there is no Coast Guard involvement anymore.” As NGI went to press Friday, the four people remained missing.

Here’s Why 32,000+ Abandoned & Orphaned Offshore Wells Litter the Outer Continental Shelf -  Sitting about 12 miles off the Louisiana coast near the mouth of the Mississippi River, an abandoned well has been spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico for the past 18 years. This is the longest-running oil spill in U.S. history and is still ongoing at the time of this writing. Left unchecked, it could continue to spill oil into the ocean for another 100 years.It all started in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan struck the Gulf of Mexico, passing within about 62 miles of a fixed offshore platform owned by Taylor Energy. It hit as a Category 3 hurricane, bringing 145-mph winds and 70-foot ocean swells that caused an underwater mudslide—ultimately capsizing the rig and moving it about 560 feet before it was buried beneath 150 feet of mud on the ocean floor. At least 28 oil wells were exposed. Taylor Energy reported the leaks and attempted to stop them, but they were unsuccessful.  In all, it’s estimated that the Taylor Energy spill has released up to 140 million gallons of oil to date. Not all stories of abandoned and orphaned offshore wells are like Taylor Energy’s. Some have been decommissioned the right way, while others are long forgotten and pose unknown environmental and marine life risks. Inadequate records and limited monitoring have made it challenging to accurately track the number of abandoned wells and whether they’ve been adequately plugged. According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, however, more than 32,000 of the 55,000 offshore wells across the 10.9-million-acre Outer Continental Shelf are abandoned or orphaned. Offshore wells are abandoned when they do not produce enough to offset operating costs. Some wells never produce at all. Some “dry up,” their accessible reserves exhausted based on current extraction methods. Some of these wells are temporarily abandoned, with the idea or promise that the owner will return to attempt extraction sometime in the future. Yet, the average length of time since the 3,364 “temporarily” abandoned wells in the Outer Continental Shelf were last drilled is 38 years.  Wells are considered orphaned when they have no owner. Offshore oil wells are often orphaned if the companies that own and operate them go bankrupt or close their doors for any other reason. With no known owner, orphaned wells present significant challenges when it comes to shutting in and decommissioning them. Decommissioning an offshore well is expensive and difficult. In the case of the Taylor Energy oil spill, worker safety and environmental concerns stopped attempts to dredge the seafloor and access the wells, which lay about 500 feet below the surface. The state has already spent about $64 million decommissioning Platform Holly off the coast of California, a cost the state must now bear after the platform’s owner, Venoco, filed for bankruptcy. The total cost of decommissioning the platform is expected to reach about $350 million. California is also shouldering the cost of decommissioning orphaned wells on the Rincon Pier after their operator filed for bankruptcy. The state has appropriated more than $50 million in funding for the project thus far.

Oil spill in Corpus Christi Bay on Christmas weekend  (KXAN) — The U.S. Coast Guard is working to clean up approximately 3,800 gallons of light crude oil in Corpus Christi Bay. The spill was reported around 11 p.m. Saturday near the Flint Hills Ingleside facility in the La Quinta Channel, according to the USCG. That’s when watchstanders sent Coast Guard pollution responders to the area to assess the spill.Responders arrived on the scene and estimated up to 3,800 gallons of oil spilled into the water from a cracked pipe. The pipeline was cracked in multiple places, the USCG said. Responders saw a sheen that was about 300 by 200 yards. Responders from Miller Environmental Services deployed over 1,500 feet of boom to contain and absorb the oil.

Texas Refineries Could Take Two Weeks To Fully Restore Operations After Storm -  Most refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast have begun procedures to restart operations that were disrupted by the massive winter storm late last week, but a full return to normal output of motor fuels could take up to two weeks for some facilities.    The freezing temperatures affected refinery equipment and caused issues at the steam and co-generation units at some refineries, sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Wednesday. Pemex’s Deer Park refinery and Motiva Enterprises’ Port Arthur, the biggest refinery in the United States, could see their restart stretched out to the first or second week of January, sources familiar with the refineries’ operations and schedules told Reuters. Winter Storm Elliott led to hard-freeze warnings issued for all the states along the U.S. Gulf Coast, where most of the U.S. refining capacity is located.    As of Friday, December 23, as much as 1.5 million bpd of the Gulf Coast’s refining capacity was shut down due to the freezing temperatures, per Reuters estimates.   Refineries run by Motiva Enterprises, Marathon Petroleum, and TotalEnergies outside Houston were shut late last week. Operations at other refineries in Texas, run by ExxonMobil, Valero Energy, and LyondellBasell, were also disrupted by the severe winter storm.   In total, the extreme winter weather affected some of the output at refineries along the Gulf Coast that process a combined 3.58 million barrels per day (bpd) and deliver around 20% of U.S. motor fuels.Last week, the national average gasoline price dropped for a seventh consecutive week, but it’s not certain this week will bring another decline in gasoline prices, due to the rally in oil prices and the refinery outages due to the storm, according to fuel savings app GasBuddy. “We’re still waiting for the national average to fall below $3 per gallon, something that is suddenly a bit less likely given the extreme cold weather, interrupting refining operations in the south, curbing gasoline production and potentially driving prices up slightly,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said on Tuesday.

Marathon Oil completes Eagle Ford acquisition for $3 billion - Marathon Oil Corporation completed its acquisition of the Eagle Ford assets of Ensign Natural Resources for a total cash consideration of $3 billion after considering closing adjustments. The acquisition was previously announced on Nov. 2. The assets acquired from Ensign Natural Resources (99% operated, 97% working interest) span Live Oak, Bee, Karnes, and Dewitt Counties across the condensate, wet gas, and dry gas phase windows of the Eagle Ford. Marathon Oil believes it can deliver maintenance level production from the acquired asset of 67,000 net boed (22,000 net bopd of oil) with approximately one rig and 35 to 40 wells to sales per year. The Company's valuation of the asset was based on this maintenance level program and does not include any synergy credits or upside redevelopment opportunity. Chairman, president, and CEO Lee Tillman said, "This acquisition satisfies every element of our disciplined acquisition criteria. It's immediately accretive to our key financial metrics, it will drive higher shareholder distributions consistent with our operating cash flow driven Return of Capital framework, it's accretive to our inventory life with attractive locations that immediately compete for capital, and it offers truly compelling industrial logic given our existing Eagle Ford footprint and our track record of execution excellence in the play."

U.S. shale executives concerned about labor shortages amidst rising costs in 2023— U.S. shale executives remain concerned about the outlook for rising costs going into 2023 as they continue to struggle with hiring and retaining workers, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “The labor market continues to be incredibly tight in the Permian Basin,” one unidentified respondent was quoted as saying in the bank’s latest quarterly energy survey. “Our company is relying more heavily on rotational employees to service equipment. Permian Basin infrastructure seems to be at max capacity. We are seeing an increase in safety incidents due to poor road conditions and traffic.” Most respondents polled in the survey, which was released on Dec. 29, said they expect to increase capital spending slightly or significantly next year compared with 2022 levels. While most also see West Texas Intermediate oil at $80 per bbl or higher at the end of next year — levels that are above the current price — underlying inflation and supply chain issues punctuated by labor shortages also make major production hikes unlikely.

To ease looming West Texas water shortage, oil companies have begun recycling fracking wastewater - Fracked wells in West Texas don’t just produce petroleum. Much more than anything else, they spit up salty, mucky water. Typically, companies have discarded that fluid, hundreds of millions of gallons per day, by injecting it back underground, occasionally causing small earthquakes. But as water becomes more scarce, they’re beginning to reconsider. For now, hydraulic fracturing in arid West Texas uses large amounts of fresh aquifer water to crack open subterranean shales, unleashing a mixture of oil, gas and fossil brine 10 times as salty as the sea. Fracked wells in West Texas don’t just produce petroleum. Much more than anything else, they spit up salty, mucky water. Typically, companies have discarded that fluid, hundreds of millions of gallons per day, by injecting it back underground, occasionally causing small earthquakes. But as water becomes more scarce, they’re beginning to reconsider. For now, hydraulic fracturing in arid West Texas uses large amounts of fresh aquifer water to crack open subterranean shales, unleashing a mixture of oil, gas and fossil brine 10 times as salty as the sea.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve Falls to Lowest Level Since 1983 as Gas Prices Rise Again -- The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) fell to its lowest level since 1983, as oil and gas prices rose again last week. The Biden administration has tapped over 240 million barrels from the SPR this year to lower domestic gas prices, which have been rising since the president took office. President Joe Biden first announced his plan to release oil from the national reserve on an emergency basis on Nov. 23, 2021, as part of a “major effort to moderate the price of oil” and lower prices at the average “corner gas station.” The SPR was established when Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act after the 1973 oil embargo, for emergency shortages, acts of terrorism, and natural disasters. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden ordered the release in March of the first 30 million barrels out of the 180 million initially intended to be tapped from the SPR in 2022. Republicans and energy analysts have been highly critical of the plan, arguing that it does little to lower gas prices and makes the United States more vulnerable to major supply disruptions in the future. U.S. gas prices soared over $5 per gallon in June, reaching an all-time high, but later fell below $4 by the end of summer. Right before the midterms,  Biden controversially ordered the DOE to sell an additional 15 million barrels from the SPR on October 19, in addition to the oil already released, and called for additional sales throughout the winter.The emergency oil stockpile, which is managed by the Department of Energy (DOE), tumbled to 375.1 million barrels as of Dec. 23, according to the Energy Information Administration This is the first time that the reserve has fallen below 378 million barrels since Dec. 30, 1983, when it reached 378.3 million barrels.In the meantime, average national gas prices rose to $3.159 per gallon on Dec. 29, for the third consecutive day, according to the American Automobile Association’s gas price index.However, the brief rally earlier this week and other associated factors may deter producers from selling oil contracts to the U.S. government at its desired price of between $67 and $72 per barrel, to refill the reserve.West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the U.S. oil benchmark, jumped to nearly $80 per barrel last week, but later fell to around $78.30 by Dec. 29, while the Brent crude index, the global oil benchmark, hit $84.33 per barrel.The DOE’s Office of Petroleum Reserves announced on Dec. 16, that it would start repurchasing crude oil for the SPR.Higher oil prices potentially pose a challenge to the DOE’s plan to begin soliciting bids from oil producers to refill the SPR using fixed-price contracts.The Chicago Mercantile Exchange showed future WTI prices holding above $79 per barrel from February through July 2023. The DOE’s program to refill the national oil stockpile by 3 million barrels a day, is set to begin in February 2023.

Keystone Restarts Canada Oil Exports to All Lower 48 Destinations - After a 29-day interruption to repair a leak in Kansas, oil flows resumed Thursday to all destinations on Keystone Pipeline for up to 600,000 b/d of Canadian exports into the United States. TC Energy Corp. said added precautions enabled the restart, including a reduction to a high operating pressure previously allowed by a special permit from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). “After completing repairs, inspections and testing we proceeded with a controlled restart of the Cushing Extension,” said TC management. “The Keystone Pipeline System is now operational to all delivery points. “The pipeline system will operate with additional risk-mitigation measures, including reduced operating pressures. We maintain our commitment to our ongoing safety-led response and will fully remediate the incident site.” Keystone eastern flows resumed Dec. 14 to the Illinois refining region of Wood River and Patoka, a week after a break in the line spilled 14,000 bbl. The last restart reopened a southern branch to the Houston area via the Cushing hub in Oklahoma. The mishap remains under investigation and no cause has been disclosed. TC said it would “share the learning from the investigation as they become available.” The spill darkened a Kansas field and creek about 20 miles south of Steele City, NE,, a junction site where the 2,151-mile pipeline splits into its eastern and southern paths for Canadian oil from Alberta. The Keystone cleanup and restart follows a plan devised by TC, PHMSA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and other local, state and federal agencies.

California passed a milestone law to stop neighborhood drilling. Now Big Oil has launched its counterattack.  -Environmental justice communities and advocates across California celebrated a major victory in August when state legislators passed a bill to ban new oil wells and phase out old ones within 3,200 feet of sensitive sites like homes, schools, and hospitals. It was a win decades in the making. Activists had spent years fighting to protect communities from the toxic impacts of neighborhood oil drilling, which include higher risks of cancer, asthma, heart disease, preterm birth, and other reproductive issues. Democratic state Senator Monique Limón, who introduced the setbacks bill, known as SB 1137, called its passing, “a historic moment in California history.”  But last week, Big Oil struck back. The California Independent Petroleum Association, or CIPA, the trade group representing drillers in the state, announced it has gathered enough signatures to force a referendum onto the 2024 state ballot. If approved by voters, it would overturn the state legislature’s decision and dismantle the new setbacks law, leaving it to CalGEM, the state’s slow moving regulatory body for oil and gas, to implement protections on its own accord. CIPA originally filed the paperwork for the referendum just three days after Governor Gavin Newsom signed the oil setback bill into law in September, and has spent months collecting the more than 600,000 signatures needed for the initiative to be formally included on the 2024 ballot; Stop the Energy Shutdown, the CIPA-run committee sponsoring the referendum effort, has now collected over 978,000. Over the next few months, California’s secretary of state and county registrars will count and certify the signatures. “What we’re seeing right now is the last gasp of a dying industry that is willing to do anything to get what they want,” said Kobi Naseck, a coalition coordinator with Voices in Solidarity Against Oil in Neighborhoods, or VISIÓN.

BP agrees to sale of interests in four Alaska North Slope assets -  BP today announced that it has agreed to sell interests in four BP-operated oilfields on the North Slope of Alaska to Hilcorp. The sale agreement includes all of BP’s interests in the Endicott and Northstar oilfields and a 50 percent interest in each of the Liberty and the Milne Point fields. The sale also includes BP’s interests in the oil and gas pipelines associated with these fields. “This agreement will help build a more competitive and sustainable business for BP in Alaska” said BP Upstream Chief Executive Lamar McKay. “It will allow us to play to two of our great strengths, managing giant fields and gas value chains. We will now concentrate on continuing development and production from the giant Prudhoe Bay field and working to advance the future opportunity of Alaska LNG.“ The agreement does not affect BP’s position as operator and co-owner of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield nor its other interests in Alaska. BP also expects to submit a development plan for Liberty by the end of 2014. As a result of the sale and subject to approval, Hilcorp is expected to become the operator of the Endicott, Northstar and Milne Point oilfields and their associated pipelines and infrastructure. “There are some big benefits from this transaction,” said Janet Weiss, President of BP’s Alaska Region. “BP will be able to focus on maximizing production from Prudhoe Bay and advancing the Alaska LNG opportunity. Hilcorp takes ownership of two mature oil fields ready for new investment and activity, and it will operate a third field that is primed for accelerated production. And, the state gets another accomplished operator working the North Slope. Thanks to tax reform, Alaska is now on course for increased investment and production and even the possibility of LNG.” BP remains committed to its plans for increased investment at Prudhoe Bay, which have resulted from recent oil tax reform by the State of Alaska. The plans include adding two drilling rigs, one in 2015 and a second in 2016, for a total incremental $1 billion investment over five years. These activities are expected to account for 200 Alaska jobs and 30-40 additional wells being drilled each year, bringing a boost to both the company’s operations and the state’s economy. Approximately 250 employees are associated with the assets included in the agreement and the company is committed to providing clarity about their future as soon as possible. The majority of those BP employees at or supporting Milne Point, Endicott and Northstar are expected to be offered positions with Hilcorp with no break in employment.

Pressure mounts on Biden administration for decision on giant Willow oil field project in Alaska  —A major oil prospect on federal land in Alaska is hanging in the balance as pressure mounts on the Biden administration for a final decision to approve, or reject, the project. Conservation groups and climate activists have urged the administration to deny ConocoPhillips the permission it needs to build the $8 billion Willow oil project. National groups protested outside the White House earlier this month, arguing the project will imperil wildlife like polar bears and undermine President Joe Biden's goals to combat climate change. The project's advocates, including Alaska's bipartisan congressional delegation, are calling for approval from the administration so construction can start immediately during the North Slope's short winter season, or else it will be delayed until next year. They say the project is vital for the struggling Alaska economy and could combat future high oil and gas prices. Alaska Native leaders are also weighing in, both in favor and against. Political observers say they don't know where the Biden administration will land, saying the president is in a tough political position. ConocoPhillips has said it will begin construction as soon as the administration makes a decision supporting development. Additional delay "jeopardizes ConocoPhillips' ability to initiate construction of the project in this winter season and further advance major contract awards that are needed to execute the project," the company said. Also, this month, ConocoPhillips Alaska President Erec Isaacson signaled in an interview with Bloomberg that the company will back out of the project if the Biden administration scales the development down to two drilling locations, called pads. ConocoPhillips said the "viable path forward" is a development proposal with three initial drilling pads, a plan the federal government proposed this summer. That plan arose after a federal judge rejected initial approval of the project by the Trump administration in 2020, after conservation groups argued that the government had underestimated the plan's harm to wildlife, among other factors. If built, Willow would be one of the first oil fields in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The reserve, which is the largest block of federal land in the U.S., was established by President Warren Harding in 1923 as a source of oil for the U.S. Navy. But commercial oil didn't flow from the reserve until ConocoPhillips established its first small field there in 2015. The Willow field could produce 600 billion barrels of oil over three decades, worth $50 billion at today's oil prices. Its oil could also lead to the release of 278 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions during that time, equivalent to what 76 coal-fired power plants emit in a year, conservation groups say.

Mexico Natural Gas Production Jumps by 400 MMcf/d in November -- Mexico’s natural gas production continued to surprise in November, rising to 4.431 Bcf/d from 3.872 Bcf/d in the same month last year. Production was also up considerably compared to the 4.04 Bcf/d in October, according to the latest data from upstream regulator Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos (CNH). Production averaged 4.079 Bcf/d through the first eleven months of this year, a year that has been marked by steadily increasing production. As a result, pipeline imports from the United States haven’t experienced the growth seen in previous years. Mexico imported 83% of its total natural gas needs in August, usually its highest demand period, CNH said. This figure was down from 91% in August of 2021. November’s natural gas production figure is the highest since the start of the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018. The current consistent uptick in production is the first real growth spurt since the precipitous fall that began in 2009, when natural gas production peaked at 6.534 Bcf/d. Still, Mexico’s own forecasts don’t show production returning to those lofty heights. CNH said recently that even in the most bullish production scenario, it sees output peaking at 4.73 Bcf/d in 2026. Analysts are also predicting a slowdown in oil production growth in Mexico for next year. Given the high percentage of associated gas in Mexico, this would have a knock-on effect on natural gas. Associated gas production was 2.636 Bcf/d in November. Non-associated gas added the remaining 1.795 Bcf/d, according to CNH. Petróleos Mexicanos, aka Pemex, accounted for 95% of natural gas production in November, or 4.191 Bcf/d. Private sector operators added 241 Bcf/d. Production of natural gas has been spurred by Pemex’s so-called priority fields, some of which have proven to be gas-rich. Quesqui was the leading field in November, at 582 Bcf/d. Next was Akal (512 MMcf/d) and Ixachi (300 MMcfd/), both onshore fields in the southeast. The offshore fields Maloob (286 MMcf/d) and Ku (211 MMcf/d) rounded out the top five.

LNG Plans Would Benefit Mexico and U.S. Market Long-Term, Expert Lawyer Says(intervieww transcript) “The global need for natural gas is going to continue for at least the next 30-40 years, whether for power generation, backup or industrial purposes, particularly in Asia and Europe,” Rogelio Calderón, industry expert and founder of Huasteca Ventures, told NGI’s Mexico GPI. “If Mexico has an LNG hub with access to that market, we’re going to continue to see significant LNG demand especially from Japan, Korea, China and Indonesia, where they don’t produce enough natural gas to be self-sufficient.” Calderón added: “In the years to come, there will be a deficit for natural gas in the world, and if Mexico has available LNG export plants to supply foreign markets, the country, and the US, should benefit from these projects over the next 20 to 30 years.” Rogelio Calderón is an energy and industrial projects consultant with more than 16 years of experience in the Mexican private sector and abroad. A lawyer by trade, Calderón is the founder and partner at Huasteca Ventures, which advises clients on project strategy and financing, legal and contractual operations, agroindustrial and energy industry projects such as natural gas pipelines, electricity generation, permits and renewables. Calderón has an MBA from the University of Texas and holds degrees from the Universidad Anáhuac, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and the Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Analysis-Argentina's Vaca Muerta shale boom is running out of road - (Reuters) - Argentina's booming shale production in Vaca Muerta, a formation that rivals the United States' Permian Basin, is at risk of running out of road as infrastructure to handle the oil and gas nears capacity, threatening to put the brakes on rapid growth. The government is now racing to build out infrastructure: a major new gas pipeline is set to come online mid next year and there are plans for new export terminals near Buenos Aires. The government is also working on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) law to send to Congress hoping to stimulate investment. How the government fares is key to Vaca Muerta's future after years of stop-start development. The formation, in Argentina's Patagonian south, is the size of Belgium. It holds the world's second-largest shale gas reserves and the fourth-largest shale oil deposits. It could become a key global supplier of gas as the world looks for alternatives to Russia, whose energy industry has been heavily sanctioned over its invasion of Ukraine. But industry data reviewed by Reuters, interviews with a dozen executives, local and national officials and Vaca Muerta residents, reveal how bottlenecks - from pipelines operating at capacity to a lack of fracking equipment and utilities - threaten to hold up the country's plans. "The current gas pipelines are very full," said Pablo Trovarelli, head of midstream operations at a gas treatment plant run by Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS) in Vaca Muerta, adding that new pipelines were needed to raise production. The plant aims to up its capacity from 15 million cubic meters per day (m3/d) this year to 21 million m3/d in 2023, Trovarelli told Reuters at his office in the energy transport hub town of Tratayén in Neuquen province. But it can only meet these targets if new pipelines come online. "If that doesn't happen I cannot expand, because I have nowhere to inject the gas," Trovarelli said. Data from consultancy Rystad Energy shows oil and gas production in Vaca Muerta is bumping up against the limit of what pipelines can carry. Neuquen produces some 280,000 barrels per day of oil, at pipeline capacity. Gas is similarly at its ceiling of around 2 billion cubic feet per day. Rystad analyst Andrés Villarroel said pipeline shortages had forced some recent oil cargoes to be moved by truck. "Anelo is about to collapse," said Milton Morales, 40, the local mayor, who cited hundreds of homes not being linked to the gas grid and a lack of services in the town of some 9,000 residents. The population has exploded fivefold in the last five years. "It is ridiculous to talk about the potential to develop Vaca Muerta and the projections generated by the reserves that we have behind our town and to think that Anelo today has 700 families without gas," he said.

Struggling to afford heating bills, Britons turn to ‘warm banks’ to keep out the cold - Every morning on her days off, Mary Obomese wraps up in her winter coat and heads to Woolwich Centre Library in southeast London, where she spends two hours on the computer and keeps herself warm. The 52-year-old, who works as a healthcare assistant in Britain's National Health Service (NHS), is among those who are turning to 'warm banks' - designated spaces where people can go if they cannot afford to turn on their heating at home. The war in Ukraine has pushed natural gas prices up sharply, exacerbating a cost-of-living crisis in Britain, where inflation rates are among the highest in the developed world. Obomese, who lives in a council flat and earns about 1,500 pounds ($1,828) per month, is the main earner in her family, with her two children still in education and her husband working as a freelance journalist. The family has been operating an 'on-off' system with their heating, turning it on in the mornings and then off for most of the day, then intermittently in the evenings when the children return from school and university. When they get cold, Obomese said, they wrap up in their coats or sit on the sofa with blankets.

Finland gets floating LNG terminal to replace Russian gas (AP) — Finland’s first floating liquefied natural gas terminal was moored today at the southern port of Inkoo where it will supply gas to the Nordic country that was cut off from Russian gas imports earlier this year amid the war in Ukraine. The massive 291-meter-long and 43-meter-wide offshore support vessel Exemplar, which sailed to the Baltic Sea from Spain earlier December, has a capacity of 68,000 tons of LNG and is scheduled to be operational from the beginning of 2023. FSRU Exemplar, owned by the U.S. company Excelerate Energy Inc., will ensure future availability of gas in Finland, replacing supplies earlier imported from Russia, Finland’s state-owned Gasgrid Finland said. The vessel will reconvert LNG to gas which will then be fed into the Finnish network for distribution. The arrival of the Exemplar will also enable gas deliveries to the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — and possibly also to Poland through the undersea Balticconnector pipeline between Finland and Estonia that runs near Inkoo. Russian energy giant Gazprom halted gas exports to neighboring Finland in May, citing Helsinki’s refusal to pay in rubles, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded European countries do since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Gazprom’s move marked a likely end to Finland’s nearly 50 years of importing natural gas from Russia. The two parallel Russia-Finland natural gas pipelines were launched in 1974. Natural gas currently accounts for just some 5 percent of total energy consumption in Finland, a country of 5.5 million. Until May, nearly all of that gas came from Russia, and has been used mainly by Finnish industrial and other companies with only an estimated 4,000 households relying on gas heating. As Moscow has cut off electricity exports to Finland — also in May — and the Finnish state-controlled oil company Neste has replaced imports of Russian crude oil with other sources, Finland’s energy ties with Russia are now all but gone.

European natural gas prices return to pre-Ukraine war levels  — European natural gas prices fell this week to levels not seen since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Front-month natural gas futures on the Dutch Title Transfer Facility, the benchmark contract in Europe, plunged in recent weeks to bottom out below 77 euros ($81.91) per megawatt hour, a level not seen since February — prior to the beginning of a full scale war in Ukraine.As of Thursday morning, they were trading at around 81.5 euros. At their peak in August, European gas prices topped 345 euros/MWh as Russia’s weaponization of its natural gas exports to the rest of the continent in response to punitive EU sanctions, and sky-high temperatures over the summer, drove up demand while constricting supply.The spiking prices sent household energy bills soaring and have fueled a cost-of-living crisis across much of the continent.However, unseasonably warm weather through winter in much of northwest Europe has reduced demand for heating and allowed the continent to replenish its gas inventory following drawdowns during several cold snaps over the last few months.Goldman Sachs in November predicted a sharp fall in European gas prices in the coming months as nations gained a temporary upper hand on supply issues. “As a rule of thumb, a rise or fall in gas prices by €100 per MWh changes the gas bill of the euro zone economy — at 2021 gas consumption — by an amount equal to almost 3% of GDP once households and consumers have to bear the full costs of the change in gas prices,” Berenberg Chief Economist Holger Schmieding explained in a note last month.“As the EU imports some gas under longer-term fixed-price contracts, the actual impact on the gas import bill is not quite as pronounced ... but as electricity prices are still largely linked to gas prices, the total pain of high gas prices — and the relief from any correction — may be more pronounced than the rule of thumb suggests.”The European Union last week agreed upon a temporary mechanism to limit excessive gas prices, which comes into force on Feb. 15. The “market correction” mechanism will be triggered automatically if the front-month TTF price exceeds 180 euros/MWh for three consecutive days, and if it deviates by 35 euros or more from a reference price for global LNG (liquefied natural gas) over the same three days.

Natural Gas Futures in Europe Plunge 77% from Crazy Spike -  by Wolf Richter -  - The price of natural gas futures in Europe continues to plunge off its crazy spike last summer. Dutch front-month TTF Natural Gas Futures – a benchmark for northwest Europe – traded today at €82 per megawatt-hour (MWh), down by 77% from the high on August 26, and back to where it had first been in September 2021 (data via Investing.com).This plunge occurred amid a dual strategy in Europe: Reducing demand for natural gas and lining up new supply to replace pipeline natural gas from Russia.The result on the supply side was a surge of LNG imports from the US and other parts of the world, that are offloaded via existing LNG import terminals and a growing list of floating storage and regasification units (FSRU). And Norway, now the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe, increased its production by 8% from a year earlier, to record levels in 2022, according to estimates by Norway’s energy ministry in August. The gas is delivered via a network of pipelines.And on the demand side, there are ongoing efforts by consumers and businesses to reduce consumption of natural gas and power, strongly motivated by the spike in energy costs. In addition, some power generation has shifted from natural gas to coal. Demand reduction was helped along by a relatively mild winter so far.As a result, natural gas storage facilities are in good shape for this time of the year, especially important for Germany. In the European Union overall, storage facilities are 83.2% full, which is above the five-year average for this time of the year. Gas storage facilities data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, as of December 26:

• Germany: 88.6% full
• France: 84.0% full
• Belgium: 84.0% full
• Austria: 90.1% full
• Denmark: 89.6% full
• Netherlands: 77.4% full

In an amazing feat in Germany, where construction delays of years are common, the first floating LNG import terminal and a 26 km long pipeline to the existing grid opened on December 17, after only five months of construction. How Germany could source and install the equipment and put 26 km of pipeline into the ground in only five months is a miracle. Similar miracles are in the works. When it comes to keeping the industrial powerhouse fueled, previously unimaginable miracles are being performed on a daily basis.In the Netherlands, two floating LNG import and storage terminals entered operations in the port of Eemshaven in September. Others are in the works.Capacity of these floating LNG import terminals is relatively small, but enough of them will add up, and supplement increased pipeline supplies from Norway and other parts of Europe.The shutdown of natural gas supply from Russia is a particular and spicy issue for Germany, which had become recklessly dependent on cheap pipeline natural gas from Russia, dating back to the Cold War. Every Chancellor had to be supportive of enhancing this reckless dependency further. Gerhard Schröder took this dependency to a new level with the Nord Stream project. After he left office in 2005, he got cushy jobs at Russian state-owned energy companies, Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and Gazprom. Germany is now trying to make his life miserable. And it’s finally weening itself off that dependency.

Wary Market Warns of Potential Chaos Once EU Natural Gas Price Cap Takes Effect - The European Union’s (EU) decision to cap natural gas prices could jeopardize the bloc’s efforts to refill storage inventories this summer and upend the region’s energy markets, industry and market participants have warned since the mechanism was finalized on Dec. 19. ttf The price cap would be triggered if the month-ahead Title Transfer Facility (TTF) contract were to surpass 180 euros/MWh, or about $56/MMBtu, for three business days. The month-ahead TTF must also be 35 euros, or around $11 above a reference price for LNG over the same three days. That’s well below an initial proposal in November to cap prices if they were to exceed 275 euros, or roughly $86. “This in our view significantly increases the likelihood the price cap is triggered versus the previous proposal, hence significantly increasing the risk of a market disruption event,” said Goldman Sachs Commodities Research analysts led by Samantha Dart. If activated, the cap would stay in place for at least 20 working days. EU energy ministers included a provision that would allow regulators to suspend the mechanism if supply, demand or financial markets were jeopardized by it. It is taking effect Feb. 15 and would apply to month-ahead, three-months ahead and year-ahead derivative contracts on all EU gas trading hubs. It would not apply to over-the-counter (OTC) trades. Prompt TTF reached nearly $100 last summer. The contract stayed above the threshold and durations set forth in the price cap mechanism. The severe price spikes came as European buyers were scrambling to fill a supply gap left by declining Russian exports ahead of the winter heating season. EU’s Christian Zinglersen, director of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), said the cap is “unprecedented” and “untested.” He told the Financial Times days after ministers reached an agreement on the mechanism that he would be “reluctant to rely on this price cap” to prevent last summer’s price spikes. In a note to clients, Goldman analysts said a price cap without any demand limits would do little to ease trouble in Europe’s gas markets. Instead, the measure “risks making the ongoing deficit worse by incentivizing consumption.” Dart’s team said TTF prices would need to be near 180 euros this coming summer to limit demand enough to fill storage inventories to 90% of capacity by Nov. 1 as the EU has mandated. Without Russian gas imports, the International Energy Agency expects the bloc’s members to face a supply shortfall of more than 1 Tcf in 2023. Analysts at Evercore ISI led by Sean Morgan said a price cap would allow Asian buyers like China and India to be more competitive in the spot market. Other Asian buyers with long-term contracts, such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan, would also be less likely to re-export cargoes to Europe for profit, the firm said. “In our view, the announced EU gas price cap greatly increases the likelihood of acute shortages of gas for European industry and consumers when the market gas clearing price exceeds that cap,” Evercore said in a note to clients shortly after the agreement was announced. The European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET), which has repeatedly warned of the cap’s potential harm, said EU governments should prepare for the next level of decision-making. “Even with some useful safeguards to limit or suspend the mechanism, we can still expect there to be changes in the market behavior,” EFET said.

Turkey discovers new gas reserve in Black Sea - Turkey has discovered a new natural gas reserve of 58 billion cubic meters (bcm) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced. In addition to the new discovery at a depth of 3,023 meters in the Caycuma-1 field, the total gas reserve was raised also by a revision of the estimated volume in the Sakarya field to 652 bcm from 540 bcm, Erdogan said at a press conference after a cabinet meeting, Xinhua news agency reported.

Russia ready to resume gas supply to Europe via Yamal-Europe gas - Russia is prepared to resume gas supplies to Europe via the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, which was previously stopped for political reasons, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told Russian state news agency TASS on Sunday. "The European market remains relevant, as the gas shortage persists, and we have every opportunity to resume supplies. For example, the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which was stopped for political reasons, remains unused," Novak said. There is an increase in demand for gas from Europe, Novak said, according to TASS. "Today, we can confidently say that there is a demand for our gas. Therefore, we continue to consider Europe as a potential market for the sale of our products. It is clear that a large-scale campaign was launched against us, which ended with acts of sabotage against Nord Stream," he said. Russia has been in an energy standoff with Europe since it invaded Ukraine in February. In May, only 44 hours after Ukraine reduced the flow of natural gas across its territory into Europe, blaming interference by Russian troops, Gazprom stopped supplies through the Yamal-Europe pipeline running across Poland and stopped sending gas to a distributor in Germany. According to state news agency RIA Novosti, Gazprom was forced to suspend supplies due to sanctions on its parent company, EuRoPol GAZ. In December, the West to East gas supply from Germany to Poland was also temporarily halted, "falling to zero," TASS reports.

Russian natural gas output, exports to fall in 2022 – TASS quotes Novak -  Russia will reduce natural gas production and exports in 2022 due to the shutdown of export infrastructure, TASS news agency cited Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak as saying on Monday. “Gas production by the end of the year will be 12% less than in 2021, and exports will drop by about a quarter. This is primarily due to the shutdown of export infrastructure,” Novak said an interview with TASS. LNG production will increase by 8.7% this year, Novak added. According to Novak, Moscow managed to keep oil output from falling despite Western sanctions. “According to preliminary data from the Energy Ministry, this year we will increase oil production by about 2% compared to 2021 to 535 million tonnes despite pressure on the industry. Exports will increase by 7.5% to 242 million tonnes,” Novak said in the interview.

Iran boosts natural gas output by 10 mcm per day - State oil company the NIOC says it has completed overhaul of a key natural gas liquids (NGL) project in southern Iran to allow the country to increase its overall natural gas output by some 10 million cubic meters (mcm) per day. CEO of the National Iranian South Oil Company, an NIOC subsidiary, said on Tuesday that it had started injecting natural gas to Iran's national grid from its NGL 1000 project in Aghajari region in southwestern province of Khuzestan. “This will allow for stability in production and distribution of natural gas with the purpose of meeting a part of the winter energy demand in the country,” said Alireza Daneshi. The announcement comes amid growing demand for natural gas for heating in Iran as temperatures have dropped to below zero in many parts of the country. Figures by the Iran’s state gas company the NIGC released over the weekend showed that gas demand in the Iranian household sector had reached an all time high of nearly 600 mcm per day. Iran is the third largest natural gas producer in the world after the United States and Russia with some 987 mcm per day in raw sour gas output capacity. NIGC figures released in early December showed the company had supplied a record of 843 mcm per day of natural gas to Iran’s national pipeline network.

Oman inks LNG deal with Japan to export 2.35m tonnes annually - According to Oman News Agency, Oman LNG, the leading gas producer in West Asia, signed a long-term agreement with Japan on 27 December to export 2.35 tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually to Japan’s main electricity generator JERA, along with trading houses Mitsui & Co and Itochu Corp. The contracts will be effective as of 2025 and will run for over five and 10 years, granting Japan greater energy security. Japanese news broadcaster NHK disclosed that the agreement was signed by Japan’s Trade and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is currently visiting the Gulf country. The Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq met with Nishimura in the Al-Baraka Palace and received a written letter from Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which tackled advanced relations and common interests between the two nations. Times of Oman reported that the signing ceremony, which was attended by Omani Minister of Energy and Materials, Eng. Salim Nasser al-Aufi, Japanese Ambassador to Oman Jota Yamamoto and other delegation members, also covered joint cooperation in various other fields. Itochu Corporation, one of Japan’s largest trading companies, already has a 20 year contract with Oman LNG for 0.7 million tonnes annually that is due to expire in 2025. The newly signed agreement involved discussions around extending the contracts for long-term cooperation. In 2021, Japan imported 1.9 million tonnes from Oman, making up 2.6 percent of its total LNG imports. Representatives of the Sultanate of Oman were also present in Saudi Arabia on 9 December for the historic summit between China and the GCC states, during which Chinese President Xi Jinping called on China and GCC nations to be partners in promoting unity, development, and security in West Asia. Just five days earlier, on 22 December, Japan’s Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) renewed its agreement with oil giant Saudi Aramco to maintain Toyko’s rights to store crude oil in Saudi Arabia for the coming three years. Global LNG supply has recently been compromised after Western countries imposed sanctions on Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine to hike transit fees for Russian oil to EU – Transneft — - Ukraine will raise transit fees for Russian oil running via the Druzhba pipeline through its territory to the EU on January 1, Russian oil exporter Transneft announced on its website on Monday. It is expected that Kiev will increase tariffs for transporting crude to Hungary and Slovakia by €2.10 per ton to €13.60 ($13.90), bringing the total hike to 18.3%. In November, Bloomberg reported that Ukraine was mulling a tariff hike on Russian oil transit starting next year, citing a letter from Ukrtransnafta, the operator of Ukraine’s oil pipeline network. The Ukrainian operator had attributed the need for the price hike to the “continued destruction of Ukrainian energy infrastructure” which had resulted in “a significant shortage of electricity, an increase in its costs, a shortage of fuel, and spare parts.” Transneft spokesman Igor Demin confirmed to the Russian media that the company had received the letter and was studying it. Ukrainian oil transit fees have already been raised twice this year. The last hike in April reportedly brought the total increase to 51% on an annual basis. Druzhba, one of the longest pipeline networks in the world, carries crude some 4,000 km from Russia to refineries in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Russia Says Europe Will Struggle To Replace Its Oil Products - Europe will find it difficult to replace Russian crude oil and product supply once the full effect of the EU embargoes on Russian petroleum products is felt, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.“Europe used to be a key market for the sale of our oil products. Let us wait and see which decisions they will make in the long run. So far, we don’t know what may substitute for our fuel,” Novak said in an interview with local news agency TASS published on Sunday.Some EU member states could request to be exempted from the embargo on seaborne imports of Russian oil products, the top Russian energy official said.“Probably, they will resort to exemptions, like it was with oil, when the restrictions did not apply to pipeline supplies, refineries in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Even Germany and Poland, who declared their refusal from Russian oil, have applied for it for 2023,” TASS quoted Novak as saying.The EU embargo on imports of Russian crude oil by sea came into force on December 5, while the embargo on seaborne imports of Russian oil products will take effect on February 5.Although the EU embargo and the EU-G7 price cap on Russian crude oil at $60 per barrel didn’t immediately roil the oil market – although traders were concerned about a possible demand hit from slowing economies – uncertainty is growing over how the bans on Russian imports will affect supply balances over the next few months.As the EU embargo on imports of Russian diesel enters into force, “The competition for non-Russian diesel barrels will be fierce, with EU countries having to bid cargoes from the US, Middle East and India away from their traditional buyers,” the IEA said in its monthly report in November.In the December report, the agency said, referring to Russian exports, “Crude oil loadings were unchanged on the month at just over 5 mb/d, despite a 430 kb/d drop in shipments to Europe. By contrast, product flows (in particular of diesel) surged, including to Europe.”

Novak warns that Russian oil production curb is needed - The Kremlin will mandate Russian oil producers to reduce output and avoid compliance a recently introduced price cap mechanism, according to the country’s deputy prime minister in charge for energy issues Alexander Novak.Novak told state television channel Vesti24 that any deliveries of Russian oil to customers, insisting on contracts with the price cap conditions would mean “falling into dependence on unfriendly countries”, The Kremlin uses the term “unfriendly country” to describe group of mainly Western nations backing various sanctions against Russia and its corporations and individuals following the invasion of Ukraine in February. According to Novak, while more Russian crude and products can be sent to Asia, Pacific and Africa to avoid new price restrictions, there may still be a need for producers to cut their oil output by between 500,000 barrels per day and 700,000 barrels per day. He added that President Vladimir Putin is still working on a decree to respond to the price cap, and added that the document will mostly likely ban Russian companies from selling oil to countries supporting the price cap, or customers asking for the price cap clause in contracts.The document is expected to see the light of the day sometime this week. Novak said that the current price cap of $60 per barrel may be revised down in line with lower market pricing and suggested that a production cut would be a logical response for producers facing such uncertainty. According to market reports, seaborne cargoes of Russian core oil export blend, known as Urals, were traded at discounts of $40 per barrel to North Sea benchmark Brent earlier in December. Buyers have shown a growing reluctance to take Urals deliveries following the introduction of the European embargo on Russian oil supplies and the G7 price cap mechanism. With Brent hovering below $80 per barrel earlier in December, such discount has meant that cargoes were already priced well below the cap. On Friday, however, the price for the front month February futures contract for the delivery of Brent rose by 3% to over $83 per barrel on the ICE Exchange in London, reacting to the Novak’s estimate of possibly required Russian oil production cut to avoid any sales under the price cap mechanism. Novak added that the world will still need hydrocarbons in the long-term despite the rise of renewable share of energy supply, with Russia capable of answering that need through the delivery of “cheap oil and gas”. However, Novak declined to answer a question on whether Russian gas giant Gazprom is following suit by diverting its natural gas production to alternative markets after gas exports to Europe in the second half of 2022 fell about two-thirds lower than the same period of 2021. He acknowledged that Gazprom is making concerted efforts to sell more gas to China while still exporting to Europe. “We continue to receive requests from European customers to increase gas supplies from Russia” via remaining transit routes," he said. Speaking on Monday, Novak said that authorities may issue a permission to Gazprom to resume gas deliveries to Poland and Germany via the Yamal Pipeline which had to halt pumping Russian gas in May, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Putin bans all oil sales to ‘price cap’ states —   Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree on retaliatory measures to the West’s price cap on Russian oil exports. It comes in response to the measure from the EU, G7 countries, and Australia, which took effect earlier this month.  The presidential decree bans the supply of oil and petroleum products from Russia to countries which apply a price cap in contracts. It also prohibits deliveries if the contracts directly or indirectly specify the cap.

Russia Retaliates Against Countries Imposing Oil Price Cap, Bans Exports Starting in February --  Oil exports from Russia are to be banned beginning Feb. 1 to any country that agreed to cap prices, according to a decree signed Tuesday by President Vladimir Putin. The ban would continue for five months. “Deliveries of Russian oil and oil products to foreign entities and individuals are banned, on the condition that in the contracts for these supplies, the use of a maximum price fixing mechanism is directly or indirectly envisaged,” according to a translation of the decree. Earlier this month, the European Union (EU) and the Group of 7 (G-7) nations, composed of Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States, agreed to cap the price of Russian crude oil at $60/bbl. The cap is to be reviewed every two months. The Russian oil export ban overall may be limited to buyers outside of Western Europe. The EU in May banned most Russian oil imports to reduce the Kremlin’s ability to finance its war in Ukraine. “Although the ban could potentially have expansive scope (i.e., it ‘applies at all stages of supply to the final buyer’), we interpret it as leaving President Putin and Russian government agencies with significant discretion in curtailing exports,” said ClearView Energy Partners LLC analysts. “Given that Putin has long had the option of retaliating against the West by limiting Russian output – with or without a plausibly deniable pretext – we view [the] decree more as formalizing status quo risks to supply rather than new ones.” Although the decree does not impose a “binding constraint on supply,” the ClearView analysts said Russia could use it as a “warning” to the West that it could use the G-7 caps for leverage.  “We also think Putin may be waiting to see where the West prices the coming products caps before determining the scope of Russia’s export constraints,” the analysts said.

Putin attempts to undermine oil price cap as global energy markets fracture =Russia’s announcement of an oil export ban on countries that abide by a G-7 price cap is the latest sign that we’ve entered a new era for global energy markets, according to analysts. But they also note it’s unlikely to have a short-term impact on oil prices, with markets taking their cues from data and concrete actions rather than words. The price cap was introduced on Dec. 5 and requires traders using Western services such as maritime routes, insurance and financing to pay no more than $60 per barrel for seaborne Russian oil. Urals crude is currently trading around $50 per barrel, according to Finnish refining firm Neste. President Vladimir Putin’s decree on Tuesday saidthat from Feb. 1 it would stop crude oil and oil products for five months to any nation that adhered to the cap, with a separate ban on refined oil products to come. Dan Yergin, vice chairman of S&P Global, told “CNBC Special: Taking Stock 2023” on Tuesday that despite skepticism over whether the program would work, leaders had found a way to keep oil flowing into the market while reducing Russian oil revenue. But as a result, he said, we now have a “divided, more politically charged oil market.” “For the last 30 years, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we’ve had a global market in which oil has pretty much moved around based on the economics, exceptions were Iran and Venezuela.” “But now we have what I call a partitioned oil market in which Russian oil can no longer go to its largest market, which is Europe, and the markets have been divided and that oil is now flowing east.”

Oil spills after a tanker carrying 1.1m litres of fuel capsizes in Meghna - The eco-diversity of a certain part of the river Meghna is in danger as a Chandpur-bound tanker carrying a large quantity of fuel has capsized after being hit by another vessel. The tanker named Sagar Nandini-2, carrying an estimated 1.1 million litres of oil, collided in mid-river with another ship around 4 am on Sunday near the Kathirmatha area under the Bhola Sadar Upazila, said KM Shafiul Kinjal, media officer of Coast Guard’s south zone. Sailors from other vessels on the river were able to rescue all the 13 crew members from the sinking tanker, he said. Local fishermen present at the scene told bdnews24.com that the breach on the hull of the capsized tanker is causing it to leak oil. One of the crew members, who could not be identified, said the visibility on the river was limited due to thick fog and that’s why the collision took place. “We started from Chattogram port on Saturday to Chandpur. Everything was going perfectly until we reached Tulatoli [near Bhola]. The fog started to get thicker which subsequently reduced visibility and we slowed down our speed. After a while, another ship just hit engine room on the starboard side head-on, which damaged the hull of the tanker,” he said. “The tanker started to sink immediately after the hit. We yelled and yelled for help but no one came to rescue us for a long time. Right before the tanker completely went underwater, a trawler carrying sand came to our aid eventually, he said. Another crew member alleged that the fishermen who were operating near the sinking tanker siphoned off the oil from the tanker. Coast Guard’s Shafiul, however, claimed that the overzealous fishermen who wanted to siphon off the oil from the river retreated after the authorities reached the spot. Md Akhter Hossain, chief of Bhola’s Ilisha River Police Station, said a joint team of the Coast Guards and River Police has launched a clean-up operation of the oil. In 2014, a tanker carrying an estimated 350,000 litres of oil collided in mid-river with another vessel in Sundarbans’ Shela river, and the subsequent oil spill caused massive damage to the wildlife and eco-diversity of the largest mangrove forest in the world.

Sunken Tanker In Meghna: Oil spill poses threat to hilsa sanctuary | The Daily Star - A huge amount of crude oil has leaked onto the Meghna and is spreading fast into the Bay of Bengal, after an unidentified vessel crashed into a tanker in Bhola Sadar's Tultoli area early Sunday. The government was scrambling to clean up the thick layer of oil from the water yesterday, as the massive oil slick poses a threat to a nearby hilsa sanctuary and the river's aquatic life. Speaking to The Daily Star, Enayet Hossain, officer-in-charge of Bhola Sadar Police Station, said the tanker, Sagor Nandini-2, was hit by an unidentified vessel around 4:00am. Marine science experts, zoologist and fisheries officials suspect extensive damage to the biodiversity and aquatic life, including the hilsa, following the leak from the tanker, which was carrying an estimated 11 lakh litres of fuel. Maksudur Rahman, master of the tanker, told Bangla Daily Prothom Alo that they set out from Chattogram for Chandpur. Another vessel, due to a lack of visibility, bumped into the tanker, creating a crack in the bottom. "With the help from nearby vessels, we managed to survive. But most of the oil in the meantime leaked onto the river. The coast guard was able to remove 1,000 litres so far." However, coast guard officials claimed the tanker had eight compartments – six containing nine lakh litres of diesel and the rest octane. One compartment remained intact and how much oil was actually spilt cannot be estimated as yet. They further claimed to have removed two lakh litres from the waterbody. Hasan Kerani, a farmer in Daulatpur upazila, told the Bangla daily that fishermen were trying to soak up the oil from the water using towels and cloths. "Almost all the oil [from the tanker] had drained out as the water ebbed into the Bay." Anisur Rahman Talukder, hilsa researcher, said the spill will directly harm the growth of planktons, which is usually consumed by hilsa. "The oil will dissolve into the water, which will undermine the water quality and ultimately harm hilsa production." He urged the government to remove the oil as quickly as possible. "It could damage the ecosystem and also affect hilsa movement and the nearby sanctuary … We can confirm the extent of damage after examining the area." Md Tota Mia, assistant director of the Department of Environment, said, "The spilt oil got washed away during the ebb into the sea. We still can't confirm its quantity." Nurul Azim Shikder, associate professor of Chattogram University's marine science department, told The Daily Star that the damage from the spill would be multifaceted. "The aquatic life, marine birds and overall riverine and marine ecosystems would be the first to suffer. The thick layer of oil would block sunlight from reaching into water, which will stop planktons to grow -- a severe blow to fish and mammal species in the Meghna. The spill finally will end up in the ocean and harm its biodiversity."

Shell Concede to Court Judgement, Agrees to Pay €15m Over Oil Spill in Niger Delta Communities - An international oil company, Shell has agreed to a court judgment in the Netherlands to pay €15 million ($15.9 million) to communities that were affected by multiple oil pipeline leaks in the Niger Delta region of the country. The compensation is the result of a Dutch court case brought by Friends of the Earth, in which Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary SPDC last year was found to be responsible for the oil spills and was ordered to pay for damages to farmers. While Friends of the Earth is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries, the affected communities are Goi in Rivers; Oruma in Bayelsa and Ikot Ada Udo in Akwa Ibom of Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. In 2007, the farmers with the help of the Friends of the Earth, Netherlands, and two Nigerian lawyers, Chima Williams and Channa Samkalden initiated legal proceedings in Hague, Netherlands against Shell over its dangerous oil activities in local Nigerian communities, Investors King reports. Reacting to the judgment and Shell’s intentions to pay the compensation, the Media Head, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), described the historic victory at the courts and the acceptance of Shell to do the needful as a victory for all. Although, Shell said it continued to believe the spills were caused by sabotage, the court however said Shell had not proven “beyond reasonable doubt” that sabotage had caused the spill, rather than poor maintenance. “The settlement is on a no admission of liability basis, and settles all claims and ends all pending litigation related to the spills,” Shell said. Chima Williams, a counsel in the case and the Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, said the resilience of the farmers and the communities, was a model that would galvanise other impacted communities in the region and elsewhere. “Justice may have been delayed but it has now been served. The resilience of the farmers, their communities and determination to make Shell pay is a model that will galvanise other impacted communities in the Niger Delta and elsewhere to act and stay on course,” Williams said.

Shell to Pay $16M to Nigerian Farmers Over Oil Damage - Shell, a global energy and petrochemical group, agreed to pay out sixteen million dollars (£13 million) to four Nigerian farmers and their villages as compensation for damages allegedly caused by oil spills from the company’s pipelines. This comes after negotiations between Shell and Friends of the Earth, an international environmental campaign group. In 2021, a Dutch court ruled that the Nigerian branch of Shell was responsible for the oil spill damages that occurred between the years 2004 to 2007. According to a joint statement by both parties involved in negotiations, compensation will be given based on “no admission of liability,” and a clause explicitly specifies that nothing in the agreement amounts to an admission of guilt. From 2005 until early this year, Shell’s headquarters were in The Hague, Netherlands. Campaigners hailed the 2021 court decision, as it was the first time a multinational was deemed legally responsible for the actions of a subsidiary. “We appreciate this compensation; we can build up our community again,” Eric Dooh, the son of one of the farmers who launched the case in 2008 alongside the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, said. “We can start to re-invest in our living environment.” For years, the Nigerian oil industry has been linked to numerous environmental damages which have also harmed oil-hosting communities themselves. Prior to the court ruling, Shell had argued that the leaks from its pipelines were a result of sabotage. According to reports by the BBC, although compensation is not much—given the circumstances and extent of damages—this legal development is considered a milestone for the environmental protection of rural communities in general and especially for those across the region of the Niger Delta. Nevertheless, oil pollution continues to impact the health and livelihoods of many in the communities of Oruma, Goi, and Ikot Ada Udo who are to receive reparations. The four farmers who initiated the case—Barizaa Dooh, Elder Friday Alfred Akpan, Chief Fidelis A. Oguru, and Alali Efanga—said the leaks from underground oil pipelines had cost them their livelihoods by contaminating land and waterways. Dooh and Efanga passed away before a court decision on the matter was reached, so their sons pursued the case on their behalf. In last year’s court ruling, Shell was ordered to also set up an early leak detection system in the affected area. This is in addition to the monetary compensation it is required to pay out. A joint statement by Shell and Friends of the Earth indicated that the detection system has now been installed.

Genel Oil’s oil operations in East-African region declared illegal by Somalia  - Somalia’s government declared Genel Energy Plc’s operations in a breakaway northern region illegal. Officials said the company should cease claiming to hold rights for oil exploration and exploitation in the country. Genel Energy owns oil blocks in Somaliland, a territory that unilaterally declared independence in 1991. However, the region isn’t recognized as a sovereign state by any other nation. Somalia claims dominion over the area. Any investors seeking to operate in Somalia must comply with the nation’s constitution, the Ministry of Petroleum & Mineral Resources said in a statement published on its website on Dec. 28. “The federal government of Somalia categorically rejects Genel Energy Plc’s claim to own petroleum rights in Somalia’s northern regions,” the ministry said. The government will take “all possible measures and pursue all legal avenues as part of its constitutional mandate of protecting Somalia’s territorial integrity,” it said. Genel Energy was awarded an exploration license for two onshore blocks in Somaliland in August 2012 and acquired a 50% participating interest in the Odewayne Production Sharing Agreement that covers three additional blocks in November of that year, according to its website. In 2021, Genel Energy announced it signed a farm-out agreement relating to the SL10B13 block with OPIC Somaliland Corp., with all its share of future capital investment coming from state-owned Taiwanese petroleum company CPC Corp.

CNOOC Starts Production From Second Project This Month -Chinese energy major CNOOC has started production from the Kenli 6-1 Oilfield 5-1, 5-2, 6-1 Block Development Project. The project is in the southern part of the Bohai Sea, with an average water depth of around 19 meters. The main production facilities include one central platform and six unmanned wellhead platforms. CNOOC added that 107 development wells were planned to be commissioned, including 67 production wells, 36 water injection wells, and 4 water source wells. The project started production on December 26 and is expected to achieve its peak production of approximately 36,100 barrels of crude oil per day in 2024. Kenli 6-1 oilfield 5-1, 5-2, 6-1 block is the main area of Kenli 6-1 oilfield, which is the first large-scale shallow lithological oilfield with a reserve of 100 million tons discovered in Laibei lower uplift in the Bohai Sea. At the project, the company installs standardized unmanned platforms on a large scale in the Bohai Sea for the first time. The successful startup of the project marks a remarkable step forward for the company to build standardized and unmanned offshore oilfields. CNOOC Limited is the operator and holds a 100 percent interest in the Kenli 6-1 Oilfield 5-1, 5-2, 6-1 Block Development Project.

Sinopec breaks vertical well depth record by drilling 8,866 m in Sichuan Basin, China  — China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation ("Sinopec") announced that its Yuanshen-1 risk exploration well in the Sichuan Basin had successfully completed the drilling at a depth of 8,866 m, beating the previous deepest record in the Sichuan Basin set by its Rentan-1 well. A major breakthrough of Sinopec's "Project Deep Earth," the Yuanshen-1 well has reached the deepest oil and gas formation in burial depth in the Sichuan Basin and further shows the great potential of deep ancient carbonate rocks in the region. The Yuanshen-1 well has reached the deepest hydrocarbon reservoir in the Sichuan basin – the mound-shoal complex of the platform marginal facies in Dengying Formation. During the exploration, the ultra-deep carbonate rock, buried at a depth of over 8,700 m, still showed positive hydrocarbon evidence in the porous reservoir. Drilling to a depth of over 8,000 m can bring many challenges for global industrial players. The large-size upper casing weighs 517 tonnes (568.90 U.S. tons) at ground level, which is a challenge to the rig's lifting and casing capabilities. The ultra-high temperature in the deep earth also has high requirements for the drilling fluid's stability and anti-pollution capability, and coring at such depths is difficult and time-consuming. To combat these challenges, Sinopec has developed five key technologies for ultra-deep drilling to support oil and gas exploration in deep and ultra-deep carbonate reservoirs. Sinopec has continually advanced deep hydrocarbon exploration in the Sichuan Basin, mainly including conventional gas in deep marine carbonate rocks and deep shale gas. It has discovered the Puguang, Yuanba and Chuanxi gas fields, and to date, Sinopec's annual conventional gas production capacity from deep marine carbonate reservoirs has exceeded 12 billion m3. To date, Sinopec's deep natural gas resources in the Sichuan Basin in areas with mineral rights have reached 15 trillion m3, which holds a heavy weight for China's natural gas reserves and production growth.

Crude oil up on concerns over US winter storms' impact; Brent hits $84.65/bbl – Oil prices rose in light trade on Tuesday on concerns that winter storms across the United States are affecting logistics and production of petroleum products and shale oil.Brent crude was up 73 cents, or 0.9%, at $84.65 a barrel by 0122 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was at $80.41 a barrel, up 85 cents, or 1.1%.  On Friday, Brent rose 3.6%, while WTI gained 2.7%. Both benchmarks recorded their biggest weekly gains since October. British and US markets were closed on Monday for the Christmas holiday. "Fears over supply disruption from winter storms in the US prompted buying, though trade was thin as many market participants were away on holiday," said Kazuhiko Saito, chief analyst at Fujitomi Securities Co Ltd.  "But the US weather is forecast to improve this week, which means the rally may not last too long," he said.A lethal blizzard paralysed Buffalo, New York, on Christmas Day, trapping motorists and rescue workers in their vehicles, leaving thousands of homes without power and raising the death toll from storms that have chilled much of the United States for days.Airlines had cancelled nearly 2,700 US flights as of Saturday afternoon after the weather snarled airport operations around the country.Frigid cold and blowing winds on Friday knocked out power and cut energy production across the United States, driving up heating and electricity prices. Concerns over a possible production cut by Russia were also behind today's rally. Russia may cut oil output by 5% to 7% in early 2023 as it responds to price caps, the RIA news agency cited Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak as saying on Friday.

Severe Weather in the U.S. Cut Into Output Amid Some Outages - Oil futures pulled back from early gains in a thinly traded market, as investors have been trying unsuccessfully for a month to gauge exactly when the Chinese economy may emerge from COVID restrictions. Oil prices had gained earlier in the session as severe weather in the U.S. cut into output amid some outages. Simultaneously, uncertainty over the health of the U.S. economy is posing a problem for investors, as the U.S. Federal Reserve overtly aims to slow the economy and curb demand as a way to solve the inflation problem. February WTI lost three cents per barrel, or 0.04% to $79.53, while Brent for February delivery gained 41 cents, or 0.49%, to settle at $84.33 a barrel. Petroleum products finished mixed, with January RBOB falling 2.34 cents per gallon, 0.98% to $2.3602, and January heating oil adding 8.76 cents, or 2.68%, to settle at $3.3537 per gallon. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin delivered the country’s long-awaited response to a Western price cap, signing a decree that bans the supply of oil and oil products to nations participating in the cap from February 1st for five months until July 1st. The decree includes a clause that allows for Putin to overrule the ban in special cases. The Group of Seven major powers, the European Union and Australia agreed this month to a $60/barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil effective from December 5th over Moscow's "special military operation" in Ukraine. IIR Energy reported that U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 579,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending December 30th, cutting available refining capacity by 147,000 bpd. Offline capacity is expected to fall to 27,000 bpd in the week ending January 6th. The largest U.S. crude oil refinery began on Sunday to restart key units central to its capacity and motor fuel production following a near total shutdown late last week in severe cold weather, according to a notice filed by Motiva Enterprises with Texas pollution regulators. The restart of units at Motiva's 626,000 bpd Port Arthur, Texas refinery could take up to 16 days. The refinery's largest two crude distillation units, a 350,000-bpd VPS-5 and a 200,000-bpd VPS-4, are among the units expected to restart by January 11th. The refinery's 81,000 bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker and 105,000 bpd diesel-producing hydrocracker are also shut and scheduled to restart. The two cokers, the 54,000 bpd coker-1 and 110,000 bpd coker-2, are scheduled for restart as well. The 18,000 bpd alkylation unit and 49,000 bpd catalytic reformer will also restart. TotalEnergies continued restarting its 238,000 bpd Port Arthur, Texas refinery on Tuesday. The refinery was shut on Thursday night due to severe cold temperatures caused by the passage of Winter Storm Elliot. Exxon Mobil Corp increased production levels on most units at its 369,024 bpd Beaumont, Texas, refinery by Tuesday.  Separately, Exxon Mobil Corp reported a unit upset at its 251,800 bpd Joliet, Illinois refinery on December 25th.

Oil Prices Decline In Choppy Trade On China Concerns - Oil prices fell in choppy trade on Wednesday as fears of a global recession and concerns about rising COVID-19 cases in China, the world's top oil importer, took center stage. The downside remained capped amid news that Russia aims to ban oil sales from Feb. 1 to countries that abide by a G7 price cap imposed on Dec. 5. Benchmark Brent crude futures dropped 0.3 percent to $84.42 a barrel and WTI crude futures were down half a percent at $79.14, as industry group American Petroleum Institute reports data on U.S. crude inventories later in the day. Media reports suggest that Chinese hospitals and funeral homes are overwhelmed due to a surge in COVID-19 infections as the country moves away from its hardline zero-COVID policy. There is uncertainty over the true scale of infections in China due to lack of reliable official figures. China has stopped publishing daily COVID data, but media reports now suggest that the country will eventually publish data on COVID-19 cases once a month when the disease comes under Category B management. China's reopening buoyed the outlook for oil, but analysts say that it is difficult for demand to recover in a short time as the virus spreads largely unchecked across the country of 1.4 billion people. After China announced the re-opening of borders in a major shift of its epidemic response policies, several countries have announced safety measures like testing and medical scrutiny of passengers, coming from China and other countries where the virus is prevalent.

Oil Futures Ended Lower on Wednesday – Oil futures ended lower on Wednesday, with optimism over the demand outlook stemming from China’s continued relaxation of COVID-19 curbs offset by a surge in cases of the disease. A somewhat firmer dollar also lent pressure to this market. Earlier this month, China moved to ease domestic COVID restrictions, triggering a massive wave of infections across the country, which had been nearly virus-free for much of the pandemic due to rigid control measures. February WTI delivery lost 57 cents per barrel, or 0.72% to $78.96, while Brent Crude for February delivery lost $1.07 per barrel, or 1.27% to $83.26. RBOB Gasoline for January delivery gained 0.27 cent per gallon, or 0.11% to $2.3629. ULSD for January delivery gained 2.41 cents per gallon, or 0.72% to $3.3778.   IIR Energy reported that U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 1,314,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending December 30th, cutting available refining capacity by 763,000 bpd. Offline capacity is expected to fall to 27,000 bpd in the week ending January 6th.  U.S. oil refiners were working to resume operations at a dozen facilities knocked offline by a deep freeze over the holiday weekend, a recovery that in some cases will stretch into January. An Arctic blast sent temperatures well below freezing and led to power, instrumentation and steam losses at facilities along the U.S. Gulf Coast. The affected plants process about 3.58 million bpd of oil, delivering about 20% of U.S. motor fuels. Most of the affected plants suffered minor damage. Two Houston-area plants, Motiva Enterprises' Port Arthur and Petroleos Mexicanos' Deer Park complexes, have restarts that will take them into the first or second week of January. Over the weekend, TotalEnergies began working to regain a steam and power co-generation unit critical to sustaining operations at its Port Arthur plant. Exxon Mobil was close to returning its Beaumont, Texas, plant to full operation on Tuesday. LyondellBasell Industries was in the early stages of resuming production at its Houston refinery. It plans to complete the restart of its 263,776 bpd Houston refinery by the end of the week. Marathon Petroleum, which operates the second largest Gulf Coast facility after Motiva, aims to get production back by week's end. Valero Energy was in the process of restarting its Port Arthur plant over the weekend. Phillips 66 reported a unit upset and flaring at its 356,000 bpd Wood River, Illinois refinery on December 24th. Separately, Phillips 66 reported emissions at its 149,000 bpd Borger, Texas refinery. A leak was discovered on piping from unit 40 to unit 26Flint Hills reported flaring due to planned maintenance activities at its Corpus Christi, Texas West plant. Chevron Corp reported a flaring event due to an equipment issue at its 245,271 bpd Richmond, California refinery.

WTI Holds Losses After API Reports Small Crude Draw -- Oil futures ended lower Wednesday, with optimism over the demand outlook stemming from China's continued relaxation of COVID-19 curbs offset by a surge in cases of the disease. "The somewhat firmer dollar and doubts about how quickly Chinese demand would bounce back following the country's scrapping of its quarantine rules weighed on oil and other commodities such as copper on Wednesday," "With Covid infections still very high, it could be several weeks if not months before demand fully recovers in China and oil prices are slipping today as investors reassess the outlook," With the winter storms, this week's API report maybe distorted. API:

• Crude -1.30mm
• Cushing -338k
• Gasoline +510k
• Distillates +38k

US Crude stocks fell for the 2nd straight week (6th of the last 7 weeks) according to API, which reported a 1.30mm barrel drawdown... Source: Bloomberg WTI hovered around $78.75 ahead of the API report and was unmoved by the small crude draw...

US Crude Stocks Bounce Slightly Despite Soft Demand, China's Dubious 'Reopening' - Crude oil prices were a mixed bag Thursday morning as fuel demand weakens amid the tepid reopening of China's economy.Brent futures for February 2023 dipped $1.13 cents to $82.13 a barrel at the time of writing, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell $1.13, or 1.43%, to $77.83 a barrel. Last week, WTI reached session lows of $76.79.And while United States Oil ETF USO opened at $67.55 — down 1.24% — certain crude stocks bounced higher at the time of writing: Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund XLE opened at $85.70 and was trending upward by 0.79%. Exxon Mobil Corp XOM opened at $108 on Thursday and continued to climb by 0.33%. Marathon Oil Corp MRO opened at $26.33 and was up 0.13%. U.S. crude oil inventories fell less than expected, by about 1.3 million barrels, in the week ended Dec. 23, per API data. As of Dec. 28,WTI crude oil futures prices were up 67 cents from a week earlier and up $2.98 from a year earlier.Oil is expected to stay volatile in 2023, and prices may hinge on China's ability to weather its COVID-19 hardships. The country's plan is to reopen borders and abandon quarantine by Jan. 8. Markets will continue to generate support due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ban on exports of crude oil and oil products beginning Feb. 1.

WTI Extends Losses After Small Crude Build, Gasoline Stocks Plunged Last Week -  Oil prices are lower this morning (despite a small crude draw reported by API overnight) amid concerns about a jump in Covid-19 cases after China suddenly rolled back pandemic rules (which is ironic because prices were down just weeks ago because of the Zero-COVID rules). Rising infections may dampen enthusiasm for the possible rise in demand as the country works to restore productivity. “The lack of clarity over the virus situation in China has prompted some new travel rules from various countries, which could serve as some dampener for previous optimism,”   The U.S. refilling its strategic petroleum reserves “should be supportive for the market and could have put a bit of a floor in place,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA. The impact of the huge winter storm is unlikely to have hit these data yet. DOE

• Crude +718k
• Cushing -195k
• Gasoline -3.105mm - biggest draw since Sept
• Distillates +283k

Following API's reported small crude draw, the official data showed a small crude build (+718k), but gasoline stocks plunged for the first time since early Nov...

Oil drops on China uncertainty; U.S. demand limits decline  — Oil prices fell for a second straight session on Thursday on an uncertain demand outlook as more countries considered restrictions on Chinese travelers with COVID-19 infections spreading in the top oil-importing nation. China’s government is dismantling pandemic restrictions, yet a surge in infections there is prompting tougher travel rules on Chinese visitors in some countries. Brent crude futures for February delivery fell by a dollar to settle at $82.26, down 1.2%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled at $78.40 per barrel, down by 56 cents, or 0.7%. Britain is reviewing whether to impose restrictions on people arriving from China. The United States, Japan, India and Taiwan have already imposed testing on arrivals from the country. “Crude is limping towards the end of the year in thin trading – uninspired by the lifting of COVID restrictions in China amid skyrocketing cases, with little to galvanize crude bulls or bears in today’s benign EIA report,” said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at Kpler. U.S. crude oil inventories rose unexpectedly last week as imports climbed and exports fell, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Thursday. Despite the surprise build in crude oil stocks, the report itself was “positive” and showed a “solid rebound” in implied oil demand, resulting in large draws of refined products, said Giovanni Staunovo of Swiss bank UBS. Both oil contracts dipped more than 2% early in Thursday’s session, but pared losses as the U.S. dollar slipped, with investors on edge about interest rate hikes. A weaker dollar makes oil cheaper for holders of other currencies. “With so many moving parts, I don’t think anyone can say anything with any strong degree of conviction,” Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA, said. “OPEC+ could make an announcement at any point and suddenly everything changes. Not to mention Russia’s war in Ukraine and how that develops.” Russia fired scores of missiles into Ukraine early on Thursday, targeting Kyiv and other cities in one of Moscow’s largest aerial assaults since the war started. Meanwhile, TC Energy Corp said the 622,000-barrel-per-day Keystone pipeline was now operational, weeks after a major oil spill in rural Kansas. Shutdown of the line hit supplies in the U.S. and briefly lifted oil prices, although there was little change to either benchmark after settlement.

Oil Prices Subdued On China COVID Concerns ---- Oil prices slipped in cautious trade on Friday, as a surge of COVID-19 cases in China exacerbated fears of a global recession and offset concerns over tight supplies because of the escalating Ukraine conflict.Benchmark Brent crude futures slipped 0.1 percent to $83.34 a barrel, while WTI crude futures were down 0.2 percent at $78.22.Brent futures were on track to gain more than 7 percent in 2022 while U.S. crude futures were poised to rise nearly 4 percent during the year.Investors fretted about the demand outlook following reports that a dangerous new COVID variant is spreading in China U.S. health officials and the World Health Organization (WHO) have called on China to share more information on the spread of COVID in the country, saying the lack of transparency could delay the identification of new COVID variants that pose a threat to public health. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the global body remains concerned over the evolving situation in China due to the unavailability of an apt amount of information from the country about the outbreak.An addition in oil inventory data against the consensus of a drawdown also weighed on oil prices.Data released by U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday showed crude inventories in the U.S. rose by 718,000 barrels last week compared with forecasts for a drop of 1.5 million barrels.

Higher Oil Market Rides Off Into Sunset on Last Trading Day of 2022 -- The WTI crude oil market had a good day, closing sharply higher on the last trading day of 2022. Oil prices notched a 6.7% increase for 2022, but the severe outbreak of COVID in China and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, stifled better gains for U.S. crude oil in 2022. February WTI crude oil was up $1.86 per barrel (bbl) at $80.26, and March closed up $1.95 at $80.45, while March Brent crude oil was up $2.45 at $85.91. There is still much uncertainty over if and when China's economy can recover. DTN Refined Fuels Manager Brian Milne said: "While initially greeted with enthusiasm by the market, anticipating a surge in demand for commodities, Beijing's surprise decision to end its zero-COVID policy in December is now heightening worry China might again infect the world as travel restrictions end. "These concerns were highlighted when half of the travelers on two planes from China to Milan, Italy, tested positive for COVID this week. In response, and also due to the lack of transparency by Beijing on COVID infections and deaths, the United States on Wednesday imposed restrictions on travelers departing from China, Hong Kong, or Macau. Taking effect Jan. 5, all passengers at least 2 years old on flights originating from these locations will be required to show a negative COVID-19 test no more than two days from their departure date. Other countries are considering similar restrictions." Baker Hughes said Friday that the total rig count was unchanged at 779 rigs, 141 oil rigs more versus last year at this time, and a little above the five-year average. Active oil rigs were down one to 621 rigs. Canada's rig count was down 12 from last week to 84, and down 90 rigs from the same time one year ago. January RBOB was up 8.88 cents at $2.4595, and February RBOB was up 10.16 cents at $2.4783, with the January closing on a high note as it reached expiration Friday. Besides finding support from the higher crude oil Friday, RBOB futures found support on EIA data showing a sharp 613,000-bpd increase in gasoline supplied to the U.S. market during the week ended Dec. 23 to 9.327 million bpd, the highest weekly consumption rate since the last week of September. The sharp gain in demand pressed gasoline inventory down 3.1 million bbl from a five-month high to 223 million bbl, with stocks flat on the year.

Oil prices end roller-coaster year near where they began -- Crude prices ended 2022 about where they began. But what a roller coaster they rode in between. After starting the year a little shy of $80 a barrel, crude futures ended the year just above $80 a barrel. But during the year they reached highs not seen since mid-2014 – reaching near $123 this summer. Prices were propelled by concerns about crude supplies, in large part because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatened to remove about 2 million barrels from an already-tight market and in part because a world coming out of COVID-19 lockdown was craving more and more oil. Prices were also dampened by roiling concerns about a looming global recession, uncertainty around China’s oil demand as it went into and back out of COVID-19 lockdowns and the fact Russian energy supplies weren’t leaving the marketplace in the quantities expected. While uncertainty is expected to keep prices volatile, some analysts believe basic market fundamentals – not quite enough supply to meet demand – will keep prices trading in their current range, if not a bit higher. In a holiday-shortened week, West Texas Intermediate on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell three of four trading days, but that one gain - $1.86 Friday to end the week at $80.26, was enough to allow prices to eke out a weekly gain. Prices closed last Friday at $79.56 a barrel. The posted price ended the week at $76.74, according to Plains All American. Natural gas prices rode their own roller coaster, climbing to highs not seen in 14 years – approaching $10 per Mcf. The recipe for those higher prices was storage levels below five-year averages with rising demand for natural gas, both domestically and globally as US allies sought US natural gas to offset Russian supplies stirred in. As the year drew to a close, though, a surge in storage levels and a mild winter – the week before Christmas not withstanding – undercut price levels. Henry Hub prices on the NYMEX started the holiday-shortened trading week jumping 20 cents but that was followed by a 57-cent tumble that sent prices below $5 per Mcf, another 12-cent drop and an additional 8-cent fall Friday to close the week at $4.475 per Mcf. That’s down from 5.079 at last Friday’s close. Still producers seem to be more confident in price levels. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, in its fourth quarter energy survey, found respondents’ expectations have steadily risen since 2019. Respondents to the survey said they expect WTI to end 2023 around $84 a barrel. That compares to the previous year, when they expected the price to end 2022 around $74.69, 2021 around $49.77 and end 2020 around $58.54 a barrel – that survey was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. “There are enough signs to maintain a bullish long-term [outlook]: a lack of investing versus historical periods, a cooperative OPEC+ willing to limit supply, and a lack of refining capacity,” one survey participant commented. “But the demand picture swings on recession uncertainty and China’s reopening response. So, although I think the price of oil should creep back up, it is hard to not consider it is just range-bound between $75 and $85 per barrel, which is still very constructive, particularly if cost-of-goods-sold inflation rolls over a bit.” Commented another, “The decline in the price of oil is of some concern because we are involved in a much higher level of drilling compared to one year ago. Our economics were figured around $80 per-barrel oil, and that could decrease over the next few months.” A third respondent offered, “Because of the overall world economy, it appears that crude oil demand may continue to slow down while the crude oil supply level remains steady. This will keep downward pressure on oil prices. I still think the overall economics of the industry will remain positive.”

Iran Moves To Consolidate Its Grip On Iraq’s Oil Sector - Iran has long held enormous political, economic, and military sway over neighbouring Iraq through its various military and political proxies, and since the discovery of vast reservoirs of oil in Iran first in the early 1900s and shortly after in Iraq, Tehran has an added incentive to retain this influence and to enhance it. With Iran’s longstanding former superpower ally, Russia, now looking to build out its remaining influence south of Europe, there is another reason for Iran to strengthen its ties with Iraq. In precisely this context, the last few weeks have seen a flurry of activity from Iran directed to doing just this, ranging from repeated military attacks against the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north of Iraq to Iran’s Petroleum Ministry setting up a fully-fledged office in downtown Baghdad. At the same time as the office was being set up, Iraq’s Ministry of Oil issued a circular to all Iraqi companies announcing the readiness of Iranian specialised companies to participate in Iraq’s oil and gas projects. Much more is to come. Two factors surrounding the several recent missile and drone attacks by Iran on the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI) are apposite to note. The first is the attacks have been roundly condemned by the U.S. on each occasion. The second is that Iran has justified the attacks as a response to terrorist acts being carried out by dissidents attempting to undermine the Islamic regime in Iran after the initial death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman from Saqqez in Iran’s own Kurdistan province. This followed her arrest by Iran’s morality police in Tehran for allegedly not adhering to the country’s dress code for women. Although these different elements require careful unpacking to get to the truthful bits, and that follows, it is worth noting that the two standpoints – that of the U.S. and Iran – in broad terms define the reality of what is going on.First, on the Iraq Kurdistan question, Iran regards this as its own problem, not just Iraq’s. The reason why, as hinted at in the death of Ms. Amini, is that Iran - and Iraq, and Turkey, and Syria – all have very sizeable Kurdish populations of their own. In Iran’s case, about 15 percent of its population is Kurdish, about the same proportion as in neighbouring Iraq, while Turkey has 18 percent Kurdish population and Syria around 16 percent. The Kurdish people have long been denied a recognised independent state of their own and have grown understandably restive at a series of promises made to this effect by the West but never honoured.  The most recent serious assurance made to grant a recognised, independent Kurdistan came from the U.S. and its major allies, including the U.K. and France when Islamic State (IS) drove Iraqi security forces out of several key cities during the Anbar campaign of 2014. Wishing to galvanise the Iraqis and its Middle Eastern supporters to meaningfully deal with the problem themselves, and to avoid a recurrence of the images of dead Western troops on television that precipitated the U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam War, the allies used the fearsome Kurdish Peshmerga forces to provide much of the ‘boots on the ground presence’ in the fight against IS. In return, the Kurds received a heavy ‘nod and a wink’ assurance from the West that they would gain their independent Kurdistan after the fight against IS had been won.

Nearly 3,000 civilians killed or injured in Saudi strikes on Yemen’s Sa’ada in 2022: Official - A Yemeni health official says nearly 3,000 civilians, including African refugees, lost their lives or sustained injuries this year as a result of artillery and missile strikes by Saudi military forces in Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada. Director of Razih Rural Hospital, Abdullah Musreeh, told Yemen’s official Saba news agency on Wednesday that the number of civilian casualties in the Yemeni regions stands at 2,909, and that the figure covers the period between early January and late December this year. He added that at least 907 people were killed or wounded during the UN-brokered truce that lasted six months and expired on October 2, when gunshots, artillery rounds and missiles by Saudi border guards targeted the Shada'a district. Musreeh said his hospital received 111 dead bodies and 796 injured people, including African asylum seekers, throughout the mentioned period, stressing that Saudi Arabia never committed itself to the truce and its criminal acts continue unabated. The Yemeni health official noted that most of those critically wounded were transferred to medical centers in the capital Sana’a, as Razih hospital was short of medical equipment to provide necessary services. Separately, the Director of Monabbih Rural Hospital Ali al-Ayashi stated that the hospital has received 169 bodies and 1,833 injured people since January. He pointed out that the Riyadh regime presses ahead with its horrendous crimes against the Yemeni nation and African asylum seekers.

Nearly 700 ISIS suspects killed in Syria, Iraq this year, U.S. says -    American military personnel, together with local forces in Iraq and Syria, killed nearly 700 suspected members of the Islamic State in 2022, officials said Thursday, highlighting an aggressive counterterrorism campaign that quietly endures five years after a U.S.-led coalition destroyed the militant group’s caliphate. U.S. forces conducted 108 joint operations in the past year against alleged ISIS operatives in Syria and an additional 191 in Iraq, U.S. Central Command said in a statement, which notes that American troops undertook another 14 missions by themselves and only inside Syria. Nearly 400 suspects were detained, it says.“The emerging, reliable and steady ability of our Iraqi and Syrian partner forces to conduct unilateral operations to capture and kill ISIS leaders allows us to maintain steady pressure on the ISIS network,” Maj. Gen. Matt McFarlane, the top commander of the task force overseeing these operations, said in the statement.Last year, following the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden declared at the United Nations that the United States would no longer “fight the wars of the past.” But in Iraq and Syria, the Pentagon maintains contingents of about 2,500 and 900 troops, respectively, who still occasionally come under enemy fire.  Biden, writing in an opinion piece published in July by The Washington Post, said that the Middle East is “more stable and secure” than when his administration took over in January 2021, highlighting the U.S. operation in February that killed Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, then the leader of the Islamic State. The group has affiliates elsewhere, including in Afghanistan and parts of Africa.

Attack in eastern Syria kills 10 oil workers: state media - An attack in eastern Syria killed 10 oil field workers, state news agency SANA has reported, a day after Syrian Kurdish-led forces announced an offensive against ISIL (ISIS). “Two others have been wounded in a terrorist attack that targeted three buses transporting workers from al-Taim oil field in Deir Az Zor” province, the report said on Friday. SANA did not provide any information on the nature of the attack or who may be behind it, but a British-based war monitor accused “cells of the Islamic State group” of carrying out the assault near the oil field. “The attack began with explosive devices that went off as the buses drove by, and then the group’s militants shot at them,” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP. On Thursday the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said they had begun an offensive against Islamic State fighters, following an earlier assault on a prison in Raqqa, northwest of the attack on the bus. The SDF said the offensive, dubbed “Operation al-Jazeera Thunderbolt”, aimed to “eliminate” IS fighters from areas that had been “the source of the recent terrorist attacks”. The operation is being carried out alongside the US-backed coalition, although there was no immediate confirmation from the international force that they were taking part. The SDF statement said that in addition to the thwarted Raqqa attack, IS fighters had recently carried out eight assaults in the Deir Az Zor area, Hasakeh and al-Hol camp for displaced people – predominantly family members of IS members. Last Monday, six Kurdish fighters were killed when IS fighters attacked the complex in Raqqa, the group’s former de facto capital in Syria, in a bid to free fellow militants imprisoned there.

Washington’s theft of Syrian oil continues unimpeded - US occupation troops stationed in northern Syria helped smuggle a new shipment of Syrian oil out of the country, escorting a convoy of 95 fuel tankers through Iraq’s illegal crossings on 22 December.According to local reports from the countryside of Al-Yarubiyah in Hasakah governorate, the occupation army transferred 65 tankers across the Al-Mahmudiyah crossing and 30 tankers through the Al-Walid crossing into Iraq.This is the third time this month that the US occupation army has been spotted smuggling Syrian fuel out of the country’s resource-rich northeast. On 12 December, locals reported that 37 fuel tankers were smuggled out of the country, just a week after 66 tankers were seen leaving the region.According to an investigation by The Cradle, dozens of tankers pass weekly through illegal crossings between Iraq and Syria in convoys accompanied by US warplanes or helicopters.Shepherds in the region corroborate these claims, saying that the Syrian oil is transported to the Al-Harir military site in Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR), a region known as a “hub” for western spy agencies.The smuggling operation reportedly aims to preserve the area of US influence between Baghdad and Damascus while simultaneously choke-holding the Syrian government – and depriving the largest Syrian population in the area controlled by Damascus of vital resources such as oil, gas, wheat, and medicine.Earlier this year, the Syrian Oil Ministry released a statement saying that the US army plunders “66,000 barrels of oil every single day,” amounting to around 83 percent of Syria’s daily oil production.Moreover, in recent months US forces rebuilt an occupation base in the city of Raqqa and have been working to revive the Liwa Thuwwar al-Raqqa (Raqqa Revolutionary Brigade), an Islamist militia opposed to the Syrian government.As part of the hybrid warfare being waged against Damascus, this month, US lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the ‘Countering Assad’s Proliferation Trafficking And Garnering Of Narcotics Act,’ also known as the CAPTAGON Act.The bipartisan bill marks the start of a new phase of US pressure on Syria and is considered a pretext to increase the siege on the Syrian people, who suffer from extremely difficult economic conditions similar to those they suffered during the famine that the region witnessed during the First World War.

A crippling fuel shortage piles extreme hardship on war-weary Syrians - “Syria is dead, desperate for someone to pull the plug.” This is how Nour, a 26-year-old nutritionist from Homs, summed up the situation in her home country, more than a decade on from the outbreak of a civil war and amid a worsening economic crisis. A shortage of fuel, which began to bite harder with the onset of winter, has paralyzed life in regime-controlled areas of Syria, including the capital Damascus, forcing authorities to suspend or reduce many essential public services. On Dec. 5, the government almost doubled the price of fuel overnight. Daily power outages now last up to 22 hours on average, even in the capital’s upmarket neighborhoods. Many residents cannot afford to heat their homes as winter temperatures plunge. Although the fighting between the government and rebel factions has subsided in recent years, Syria remains the site of one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises, with millions of civilians still displaced, infrastructure in ruins, and much of the population living below the poverty line. Syria’s isolation has deepened with the imposition in 2020 of the toughest US sanctions ever targeting the regime of President Bashar Assad. “The current fuel crisis in government-controlled areas is not a novel aspect of the conflict economy in Syria,” Mohammad Al-Asadi, a Germany-based research economist at the Syrian Center for Policy Research, told Arab News. The SCPR has tracked several major fuel shortages since 2020, but, according to Al-Asadi, “the current shortage is the most economically and socially impactful during the last couple of years.” Syria’s Ministry of Internal Trade recently announced plans to sell industrial and commercial diesel at 5,400 Syrian pounds a liter — up from 2,500 Syrian pounds in late November — while petrol will be sold at 4,900 Syrian pounds a liter. The price of fuel distributed through the state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company will remain at 2,500 Syrian pounds per liter. The pent-up demand for fuel has had an adverse impact on the value of the Syrian pound, which hit a new record low on Dec. 10. The dollar exchange rate on the black market surpassed 6,000 Syrian pounds for the first time, while the central bank’s rate stood at 3,015 Syrian pounds. In 2011, when the civil war began, the official rate was 47 Syrian pounds. Reports say diesel and petrol shortages have resulted in severe overcrowding at bus terminals in both Damascus and outlying areas, as the government cut fuel allocations for minibus services — the cheapest mode of transport available to Syrians. “After 1pm, minibuses stop operating, and we take any vehicle we find on the road to commute home,” said Nour. “Passengers sometimes get into fist fights over seats on minibuses and shared taxis.”

Turkiye seeks Russian approval for air offensive in northern Syria -- Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar revealed on 24 December that discussions are being held with Russia to use the airspace above northern Syria for a potential cross-border operation that targets Kurdish militant groups.“We are in talks and discussing with Russia all issues, including opening the airspace,” Akar stated during his end-of-year address.With these talks, Turkiye is following in the footsteps of Israel, which coordinates all of its attacks inside Syria with the Russian army.Turkiye has been launching indiscriminate artillery attacks across northern Syria and Iraq over recent months, targeting positions held by the People Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).Ankara considers the YPG as the Syrian branch of the PKK —considered a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the EU, and the US. However, Washington sees the YPG as distinct from the PKK and considers it a valuable asset as the group makes up the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).Since last month, the Turkish army has been readying a ground offensive into northern Syria after a deadly terror attack in Istanbul, which was blamed on Kurdish militants. US officials, however, have repeatedly warned Ankara against any cross-border incursion, as their attacks have already caused disruptions to their oil trafficking campaign in northeast Syria, which is conducted in coordination with the SDF.

Damascus is Drowned, ‘Painful’ Offers Await Decision | Asharq AL-awsat - Damascus is mired in its suffocating economic crisis. Syria is expelling its people and is divided into three “states” separated by border-like lines, where militias, organizations, extremists and warring foreign armies coming from major and regional countries abound. Contradictory offers and different conditions are put forward to start a long and complicated march out of the abyss and the abandoned land. But what are the most important conditions and temptations?

• The Iranian offer: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will arrive in Damascus in the coming days. Tehran, which has maintained an exceptional relationship with the Syrian capital since 1979, further strengthened its ties with Syria after 2011, and provided economic and financial support that exceeded $20 billion. It also delivered militias, weapons, and military support to “save the regime.” Tehran believes that had it not been for its intervention in Syria at the end of 2012 and its mediation with Russia to engage in the country at the end of 2015, “the ally would have changed.” The regime remained, and will remain, and it wants a price in return. Iran is seeking a strategic military position that enhances its regional status, in addition to a foothold on the Mediterranean. It demands sovereign financial concessions in oil, gas and phosphate fields, projects and communications. Finally, it wants the Iranians to be treated like the Syrians.
• Arab offers: The Director of the National Security Bureau, Major General Ali Mamlouk, and the Director of General Intelligence, Major General Hussam Louka, visited Arab and Gulf countries in the past weeks, and held meetings for the first time with the leaders of these countries. What are the Arabs offering? The scope of the offers are wide. It features a direct duo and another major geopolitical proposal. The list includes direct matters, such as stopping the flow of Captagon across Jordan’s borders, and cooperation to prevent the infiltration of smugglers and terrorists. On the geopolitical level, proposals feature changing the nature of the relationship with Iran, so that Syria will not be a foothold and a passage to support terrorist organizations and militias that threaten Arab security. The list includes Syrian matters, such as the political solution, the constitutional committee, and guarantees for the return of refugees. Some countries are betting that Damascus will almost reach the standards of the “Abraham Accords” with Israel. On the other hand, the Arab countries offer economic support and exemptions from the sanctions of the US “Caesar Act”, a return to the Arab League and the Arab embrace, in addition to aid and reconstruction.
• The Turkish offer: Following the intervention of President Vladimir Putin, Presidents Bashar al-Assad and Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to security meetings between the head of the Syrian Security Bureau, Ali Mamlouk, and his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in Moscow. The Turkish request included a joint operation against the PKK and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, cooperation to return Syrian refugees, and action against terrorism. In exchange, Ankara offers economic support, financing for reconstruction projects, political contacts, and “legitimization” of the regime. Assad has not yet agreed to these proposals and wants Ankara to stop supporting the factions, cooperate against terrorism, and announce its withdrawal from Syria.

Turkey, Syria, Russia defence ministers hold talks in Moscow - Defence ministers of Russia, Turkey and Syria have held talks in Moscow in a clear sign of normalisation between Ankara and Damascus in the decade-long Syrian war. Turkish defence minister Hulusi Akar and the head of its National Intelligence Organisation (MIT), Hakan Fidan, met Syrian defence minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas and Syrian intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk in Moscow along with Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu, the Turkish defence ministry said on Wednesday. “Ways of resolving the Syrian crisis and the problem of refugees as well as joint efforts to combat extremist groups in Syria have been discussed,” RIA news agency said, citing the Russian defence ministry. “Syrian crisis, refugee issue and efforts of joint fight against all terror organisations on Syrian soil were discussed in the constructive meeting,” the ministry’s statement said on Wednesday. “Turkish, Russian and Syrian defence ministers as well as intelligence chiefs in Moscow have agreed to continue tripartite meetings to ensure stability in Syria and in the region as a whole,” it added. Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu said the meeting was important because the Turkish and Syrian ministers held talks for the first time in 11 years. “We hear Turkish officials saying that it is time for normalisation of ties with Syria,” she said, adding that the two countries were already holding talks at the intelligence levels. Koseoglu said there were still major differences between Ankara and Damascus over the Syrian issue. “We know that Damascus wants the Turkish military presence out of their borders,” she said. “We are also hearing that the Turkish defence minister asked for safe and honorary return of Syrian refugees,” she added.

UN passes resolution to seek ICJ opinion on Israel’s occupation of Palestine - The UN General Assembly on Saturday passed a resolution seeking opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. The resolution was backed by 87 countries of the UN General Assembly members against 26 with 53 abstentions. The resolution calls on the ICJ to determine the "legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination" as well as of its measures "aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status" of the holy city of Jerusalem. It also calls on the UN Secretary General to present a report on the implementation of the resolution in the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly in September 2023. Palestinian representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, hailed the countries that were "undeterred by threats and pressure" and voted in favor of the resolution. "This vote comes one day after the new Israeli government was formed pledging to accelerate colonial and racist policies against the Palestinian people," Mansour said. The UNGA resolution was hailed by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA). "Time has come for Israel to be a state subject to law, and to be held accountable for its ongoing crimes against our people,” PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said. Around 666,000 settlers live in 145 settlements and 140 random outposts (not licensed by the Israeli government) in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to Israeli Peace Now NGO. Under international law, all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal.

One-third of Arab population lives in poverty: ESCWA - One-third of the Arab population lives under the poverty line, a UN body said Saturday. A report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) said that poverty increased in the Arab countries to affect 130 million people. According to the UN commission, the region’s economy is expected to grow by 4.5% in 2023 and 3.4% in 2024 despite the disruption of the global economy's recovery. Unemployment in the Arab region registered the highest rate in the world in 2022 at 12%. "There may be a very slight decrease in 2023 to 11.7 percent,” ESCWA said. Ahmed Moummi, the lead author of ESCWA's report, said despite the region’s positive growth outlook, there are significant discrepancies among countries, which were exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. "The current situation presents an opportunity for oil-exporting Arab countries to diversify their economies away from the energy sector by accumulating reserves and investing in projects that generate inclusive growth and sustainable development," he said. ESCWA is one of the five UN regional commissions, which supports inclusive and sustainable economic and social development in Arab States, and works also on enhancing regional integration.

US waged war on Afghans, indulged in corruption, says former president Karzai -- Afghanistan’s former president Hamid Karzai has blamed the United States for the fate of the war-ravaged country, saying the protracted war “was not our war" but used by the US and its allies against the people of Afghanistan. “I was not a partner of the United States in that war against Afghan villages and homes. I changed from the moment I recognized that this war that is fought in the name of defeating terrorism is actually a war against the Afghan people,” Karzai said in an interview with the Washington Post. “I called the Taliban ‘brothers’ for that reason.” Karzai said he had a host of disagreements over various issues with the United States. He also accused Pakistan, which entered into an alliance with the so-called US "war on terror" following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, of sheltering militants. “They knew, the Americans, that the sanctuaries were in Pakistan. They told us that repeatedly. And they would bomb Afghan villages. They would come and tell us that Pakistan was training extremists and terrorists," the former Afghan president said. "Then, they would go and pay them billions of dollars. When this was repeated and repeated, I had only one conclusion. The conclusion was either the Americans are doing this on purpose, or that they are extremely naive and out of touch with the realities of this region.” Karzai said he took responsibility for corruption in the country, while also stressing that the US was the biggest player. “…Yes, there was corruption, but to blame Afghans or the Afghan government for it, is wrong. We do take responsibility. I would never say there was no corruption. But who was responsible for it? Afghans or our international partners? Mainly our international partners, and they know it. They will admit it.”

Ukraine presidential aide calls for destruction of Iranian weapon factories -A presidential aide for Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on 24 December called for the “liquidation” of Iranian weapons and drone manufacturing facilities and the arrest of those supplying the Islamic Republic with raw materials.“Important to abandon nonworking sanctions, invalid UN resolutions concept, [and] move to more destructive tools,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted early Saturday.Since September, Kiev has accused Tehran of supplying the Kremlin with hundreds of kamikaze drones allegedly used to hit Ukrainian infrastructure.On Friday, the head of Ukraine’s spy agency claimed Russia had already launched around 540 drones at military and energy targets. For its part, Iran denies supplying Russia with drones since the start of the war.The call for military action against Iran by Zelensky’s aide comes just days after officials in the Islamic Republic warned that its “strategic patience” towards Ukraine was running out.“Iran’s patience will not be limitless,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a statement published by the state-run IRNA news agency on 22 December, where he also reiterated Tehran’s official position of “never supplying military equipment to any side to be used in the Ukraine war.” “Mr. Zelenskyy should better learn a lesson from the fate of other world leaders who have invested hope on America’s support,” Kanaani concluded.This statement was released hours after President Zelensky delivered an address at the US Capitol building, where he rebuked Iran for being an ally in Russia’s “genocidal policy” before describing Tehran as a “terrorist” state.